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The River ChurchSermons

Jayson Combs · 26 Jun 2026

Jayson Combs · Friday, 26 June 2026 · 38:03 · 5,397 words

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

Pastor Jason Combs opens in 1 Timothy 4, urging believers to train themselves for godliness rather than chase the benefits of following God. He defines godliness as a response from the heart toward God and warns that focusing on blessings can miss the purpose of Christianity. The message then turns to Psalms 111‑112, showing how praising God’s works produces a righteous, steadfast life even amid darkness and adversity. Listeners are challenged to prioritize godliness, delight in God’s Word, trust Him in trials, and worship Him privately and with the community.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

benefit 53 godly 43 great 35 train 12 lord 66 almighty 10 delight 10 miss 14 bless 19 trustworthy 5 praise 20 read 23

Topics

Prayer 1 Atonement & Sacrifice 1 Sin 1 Faith 1 Mission & Evangelism 1

Scripture referenced 12

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Psalms 112 1:01 Psalms 112 8:46 Psalms 112 9:42 Psalms 111 9:43 Psalms 111 10:10 Psalms 111 13:34 Psalms 111:2 13:44 Colossians 1:13 19:41 Colossians 1 20:10 Colossians 1 20:17 Proverbs 27 29:43 Psalms 112 34:54

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Pre-service announcement — 7 lines, 0:35. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

Hey everyone, my name is Mitchell, and thanks for checking out one of our sermons today.

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Thanks again for joining us, and we hope you are blessed by today's message.

Good morning, everybody. I'm so glad that you are here.

If you are new, welcome to the River Church.

My name is Jason Combs. I have the privilege of being the location pastor here.

We will be in 1 Timothy chapter number 4 this morning, so if you have your Bible, go to 1 Timothy chapter number 4.

I know some of you are giving me weird looks right now.

As you know, all summer long, we've been studying Psalms.

We're not veering off Psalms. We're going to get there.

We're just going to start at 1 Timothy, and then we'll jump to Psalms chapter 112.

So if you want to mark it.

That's where we're going to be in just a moment.

Again, it is great to be here.

Thanks for being here.

I enjoy being at the church last night.

I woke up in the middle of the night out of a nightmare, and my nightmare was I didn't make it here in time, and I missed it.

And so I couldn't figure out, and the stream was down, so I couldn't see what happened, and somehow I didn't get here.

Those are my nightmares, all right?

That's my nightmare.

So Phil would grab a Bible just as somebody would preach.

But that was, so I am really, really happy to be here.

1 Timothy chapter number 4.

The Bible says this.

Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.

Rather, and here's what I want you to see.

Rather, train, discipline.

This really does have a thought of get to the gym, right?

This is the thought here.

Like, work out, work hard, train yourself for godliness.

For while bodily training is of some value.

Getting to the gym.

Okay, there's a little bit of value there.

That's good.

The Lord wants us to see what is of great value to train yourself in.

Train yourself in godliness.

For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.

That last verse, like, listen, this saying.

You can trust it.

The Bible tells us that we are to train ourselves to get to the gym, to exercise in godliness.

There is great value in every way.

There is great, other translations use the word benefit.

There is great benefit in everywhere.

Benefits in this life.

The Bible says godliness leads to benefits in this life here on earth.

And then there are eternal benefits.

I want to tell you this morning.

The benefit package of following the Lord is immense.

It is massive.

The benefit package of following the Lord, godliness, there are amazing benefits.

Maybe over the last couple years you've had to interview for jobs and you've looked at the benefit package, right?

The side thing that says, hey, in the lunchroom there is a pop machine that you have unlimited access to.

I'd be like, this is great benefit, right?

Like, one of the benefits.

Or, you know, maybe one of the benefits was paid uniforms.

You get free uniforms.

They say Costco, but it is great.

You get free uniforms.

And you can look through all the benefits.

And I know, like, Pastor, there's the real bit, like insurance and, you know, is there vacation?

Is there retirement?

I was looking at, is there pet insurance?

Really, that's a benefit now?

Okay.

But the benefits.

If you had a friend who came to you and said, hey, I'm really looking into this job.

I'm trying to figure out whether I should take this job.

I should take this job or not.

And you said, okay, tell me about it.

And they go, let me tell you about the benefits.

They begin to list the benefits.

As a good friend, you go, okay, that's great.

What are they going to pay you?

What's the salary?

What are you going to be making?

And if they're like, I don't know.

I just looked at the benefit.

I just want to know what the benefits are.

You would slow down and go, hey, I think you're missing the big picture.

I know there's some benefits, but you're missing the big picture of this job.

And when thinking about benefits and following Christ,

I believe there's a great benefit.

I believe there's a great benefit.

I believe there's a great benefit.

I believe there's a great danger in the church today.

There's a great danger in Christianity.

Is what we do in our Christian walk is we just worry about the benefits.

We worry about what are the blessings of me following God.

And I want to tell you, I think there's a great danger in this.

See, when we read 1 Timothy, we look at this passage.

Can I tell you, this passage, the main point is not the benefits.

It's not, hey, the benefits of this world or the benefits of this world.

It's not, hey, the benefits of eternity.

The main point of the passage is godliness.

The main point of the passage is, Paul is saying, you need to hear this.

Train yourself up in godliness.

Why?

Godliness has great value.

And I think a danger in Christianity is we come and we go, I'm at your church today.

Tell me about the benefits.

And we miss the important picture.

Are there benefits?

But if you miss.

The life and godliness.

You miss Christianity.

You miss the truth.

Now, when I say the word godliness, what does that mean?

What do you think of when you hear the word godliness?

What is the author telling us?

What is the Bible telling us that we should train in godliness?

So what is that?

I was reading and one of the commentaries talked about how philosophers of the day.

So Paul writes this.

There were philosophers of that day.

They spoke of godliness.

Now, they didn't know the true God, but they would use this word.

Because they believed there had to be a God.

They looked in the weather.

There has to be a God.

So when they would speak of godliness, they would say godliness is the right conduct in regard to a God.

Or the knowledge of how God should be worshipped.

Godliness was a lover of the gods.

Godliness was wise concerning the gods.

It was reverence for holy things.

And so Paul uses this word.

Now, when we look at godliness, we know.

Who the almighty God is.

And so in defining godliness, one pastor says it this way.

I think it's helpful.

Godliness is a right attitude and response toward the true creator God.

A preoccupation from the heart with holy and sacred realities.

It's what we focus on.

We are preoccupied in our heart and our soul thinking about godliness.

How do we worship God?

How do we serve God?

The pastor goes on to say it is thus the highest of all virtues.

It is the heart and soul of Christian character and the aim of Christian living.

It is respect for what is due to God.

So the danger is if we come to church and go, okay, pastor, what do you got?

What are you going to tell me God is going to do for me?

We miss.

When we learn about who God is, it's about worshipping the almighty God.

It's about praising and worshipping and giving.

It's about praising him, right?

The song that we just sang.

God, you are worthy of the song.

You are worthy.

My preoccupation is not God.

What do you give me?

My soul should be filled with God.

How do I live a life that worships you?

So this morning, I wanted to start in this verse because we're going to study Psalms 112.

And we're going to look at 111 together with it.

But if you're not careful, you can read this psalm and just think about the benefits.

And they're great benefits.

And you'll miss.

You'll miss the overall teaching that as Christians, we're called to walk in a way that glorifies God.

We're called to walk in a way of godliness.

So let's pray and we'll dive into the book of Psalms.

Lord, thank you for your word this morning.

I pray for your help.

Thank you, Lord, that you're the almighty God.

Lord, I just sit in assurance of who you are in your word and just excited for how you'll use this this morning.

May I preach the word faithfully.

Thank you, Lord.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So Psalm 112.

Now, we're going to look at Psalm 111 and 112.

They're really what I would.

I don't know if I'm allowed to do this, but they're like sister psalms.

They're so together.

If you look, they're both 10 verses.

If you look, they start out exactly the same.

Verse 1, praise the Lord.

Verse 111, verse 111 or 112, praise the Lord.

You'll find that they are two acrostics.

What that means is each of these psalms, 111, 112, 22 lines.

Each starts with a letter in the Hebrew alphabet and it extends.

It goes A, B, C, D, right?

Like just so we understand, right?

It walks through that.

Many say it is used to help memorize, to help remember, but they're connected together.

And 111 tells us of God and 112 tells us of what a man of God looks like.

One asks the question, how would you go about training a young man or woman in the practice of godliness?

You would look at these two chapters.

One says who God is and one says what a godly.

Life looks like.

So chapter 111, it starts out and says, praise the Lord.

Or in other words, hallelujah.

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart.

It starts here and it tells us that calls the people of the Lord together to give praise to the Lord, to give hallelujah to the Lord.

And I love this.

And just kind of a side note before we dive into the chapter, it speaks of this in a personal way, right?

He says, praise the Lord.

Thanks to the Lord with my heart.

This personal, intimate way that he gives praise to the Lord.

But he also, we have the next verse in the company of the upright in the congregation.

But once that it's not individualistic, that, that our, our walk with the Lord are praising the Lord.

Christianity is not done in isolation.

We are to personally give praise to the Lord and corporately over and over in the Bible.

It calls for us to come.

Together, the worshiping of the Lord, us singing songs together.

Isn't because we need a filler before the sermon.

This is what we do.

We come together to worship the Lord.

And here, Charles Spurgeon talks about many times.

We just need the reminder.

Hey, hey, hey, lay it all down.

Let's praise the Lord because he deserves worship and praise.

It just reminds us that the Tigers game on Friday.

And there is a guy who sits in the very front row behind the.

If you've ever been in the Tigers game, he sits there and he is right.

I know some of your Tigers, right?

He just sits there and he is the most like into it of anybody in the stadium.

He is clapping.

He's constantly turning around doing this, right?

He is.

And I just, when I read that verse, like he's into it, it's him, but he's not doing it alone.

Like he is.

He wants everybody to join him and be like, Hey, I'm excited for this.

How much more do we as Christians?

We have so much more to be excited about because of who God is, because of what he did.

And to praise him is not just something we do alone.

We're so excited about who God is that we want to bring people along with us.

We want people to know the joy of the Lord.

Psalms 111, praise the Lord.

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart in the company of the upright in the congregation.

Verse two now tells us where this is going.

It says, great.

Great are the works of the Lord.

If you've been with us this summer, you've heard me say over and over again, as you read

Psalms, don't speed, read it, slow down, read it, and then read it again and find a different

translation, read it again, and then read it again, and then get on your car on the

way in your car, not in your car.

That'd be weird.

Get in your car on your way home from work and listen to it again.

I think you'll see some things and hear some things like here in 111, you'll find the word

work is used over and over.

Great are the works of the Lord.

Verse three, full of splendor.

Majesty is his work.

Verse four, he has caused his wonderful works to be remembered.

Verse six, he has shown his people the power of his works.

Verse seven, the works of his hand are faithful and just.

What is the word of God doing here?

It's pointing us to the worship of the almighty God.

As you read this, you'll come and you'll hear the creation of the Lord.

You'll see the work of the Lord, how he has created all things that we step back and

look at creation to see this is no accident.

God, the great creator, look what he has done.

When I was the youth pastor here and I'd take kids to camp many years ago, go up to New

Life Camp up in Rose City, Michigan.

So it's a few hours north.

And I still remember that last night of camp, Thursday night, we'd have just a worship night.

And after we get done, a few years, I'd challenge the kids.

I'd say, hey, listen, it's dark.

I want you to go find a spot in the field by yourself.

And I want you to look up to the heavens.

I want you to look up to the sky.

And what is so beautiful?

We go up north.

We get away from the lights and the distraction of the city.

And you see the sky in a totally different way, don't you?

You just see it differently.

You look up and go, man, I didn't see that.

I totally missed it.

Remember the kids just sit and I go, just have time praying and seeking the Lord.

Look at his creation.

Look how great he is for us.

What lights do we need to get away from?

What distractions are there that we're missing?

To see how good and how great God is.

Great are the works of the Lord.

As you keep reading, if you know some of the Old Testament,

you can't help but see the author leaning on the history of the Old Testament.

Like verse five, he says, he provides the food for those who fear him.

Talks about the redemption of his people, the power of his works.

And when you read that, if you know the Old Testament,

you start to think of, man, they were in the wilderness and had no food.

And God showed up and gave.

They were in slavery and had no way out.

And God and his power came and rescued him.

God redeemed them.

God saved them.

Again, why I urge us as a church, it's so important not to be like,

I just, I'm going to read the New Testament.

I can understand that.

No, read the whole word of God.

It'll help you understand the Psalms because you'll hear it and go, oh, this is what God did.

You go to the New Testament and you'll see, man, look how there's, look at the history.

Warren Worsby says this,

It's one of the ways that I feel like I don't do this well.

I go to the Lord and I pray and ask for help and God shows up in a miraculous way and God does amazing things.

And I move on to the next thing and go, hey, God, will you help with this?

And I forget what God has done.

So here the Psalm says, praise the Lord.

This is who God is.

Look at it in creation.

Look at what he has done.

When commentary put it all together, it says,

We see his character as being great, splendid, majestic, righteous, gracious, compassionate, faithful, just, trustworthy, steadfast, holy, and awe-inspiring.

And verse 9 says,

And if you're here and you're a Christian, we sit here and know God sent redemption to his people because we sit in a place to know that God sent Jesus Christ.

That God sent his son.

That Jesus came to this world with the purpose of going to the cross because mankind is lost and needed a savior.

So we sent here knowing we are redeemed because of Christ and the cross.

Because of what Christ did, I may have forgiveness of sin.

It is not because of sin.

It is not because I'm something or I've made myself godly.

No, it's because what Jesus did on the cross that we may receive his righteousness.

So Colossians 1.13, he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

The focal chapter this week for all the river was 1.12.

But as I studied it to look at what a man of God looks like, look at the godliness that we're supposed to have.

I couldn't get there.

I couldn't get there without looking at chapter 1.11 because we must know who God is.

The last verse in chapter 1.11, it says the fear of the Lord or the awe of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

All those who practice it have good understanding.

His praise endures forever.

Here we have the response that we're called to.

If we know the Lord, if we run into the Lord, it should humble us.

Yes, it should bring us to our knees.

If we run into the almighty God, truly, we can't help but bow down to him because he is great and holy and wonderful.

And so this fear, this awe, this looking at God that he is way beyond us.

And so this brings us to chapter 1.12 that again says praise the Lord.

And it says blessed is the man who fears the Lord.

See, it just it picks right back up.

And the rest of this chapter.

I think points to what godliness looks like in a man and a woman who follow the Lord.

And you can't have that without knowing who God is.

One said the godly person has been so transformed by God's grace that he's marked by God centered holiness and biblical happiness.

See, for me, reading the word blessed, it's so easy to skip by it and go, yeah, blessed is the man.

But we miss joyful, happy, fulfilled.

You want to know what?

Man of the Lord look like blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who knows the Lord.

So let me show you three things that this looks like.

The rest of verse one says this, who greatly delights in his commandments.

See, I believe godliness leads to delighting in his ways, in his word that will go and will delight in the word of God.

We'll delight in what God has for us.

We'll hear his truth and know.

It's for our life.

We'll hear his correction and not always like it, but we'll know it's truth and it's right.

Back in chapter 11 in verse chapter 111 in verse number seven, it says the works of his hands are faithful and just.

All his precepts are trustworthy.

What this is saying is all his instructions are trustworthy.

His blessings, his warnings, his encouragements, his threats, his instructions, his promises.

They're true.

And they're trustworthy.

As you grow to know the Lord, you come to delight in his word, in his way to hear his commandments and to trust them.

I think it's funny that we like we scoff at people in the world who don't trust the commandments of the Lord.

Why?

Why would they?

They don't know God.

Why would they delight in his commandments?

They don't know them.

They can't understand them.

We only understand the commandments of the Lord because of who God is.

I have a really silly illustration.

My wife and I were eating lunch.

Yesterday and talking through this, I was looking out at my deck and I watched a bird land on the handrail.

And I don't know about you, but all the birds love to land on my handrails and do their business right there.

Like, it's just that they love that.

Why go somewhere else?

If I were to put up a sign that says, please do not birds, do not do your business on that and put it up there and post that sign.

You think they get it?

No.

Yet, here's the thing.

If we don't know who God is.

If we don't grow.

If we don't seek to grow in knowing who he is and his love.

Because our flesh, we get off.

We get mistrained.

We get missed thoughts about who God is.

If we don't continually seek the truth of the Lord, we'll struggle to receive his instructions.

We'll struggle to understand it.

This is why teaching our kids is not just about teaching them rules of the Christian faith.

It's not just about, hey, do this.

Don't do this.

Don't do this.

That's not how you train up a child, right?

You train up a child by giving him the truth of the word.

But you have to show him who the holy, righteous God is.

You can't just look at a kid and go, listen, do this and you'll get this benefit.

Do this and there'll be this benefit.

Don't do that bad.

Do that.

Here's the benefits.

Do it.

No.

Because they're going to look for different benefits.

You look at your child and go, listen, the way the Lord has for you, that you should be sexually pure.

What the Lord calls for a relationship for you to find a spouse and to be sexually pure.

There's something just between you and your bride, you and your spouse.

Teaching them that is more than just saying, here's the benefits.

It's saying, here is who God is and he loves you so much.

This is his way.

This is his truth.

Son, I so want you to know and follow his ways because I want you to know his great and personal love for you.

Books I was reading says if we teach them.

About holiness.

Apart from God, they will lack the necessary worldview, power and motivation for goodness.

He goes on to say, I would venture to say that we lack a culture of biblical manhood because we lack a culture of theology.

A studying of the nature of God.

Again, one said, until we stand in awe of him, we will neither understand his godliness nor desire to walk in it.

As I began the sermon, I talked about the benefits.

And there are great benefits.

But we must seek the almighty God.

It's why in our church, when kids come in, we can't just go, hey, if you say this prayer, you get heaven.

Heaven is the benefit and you get heaven.

You're going to get heaven and it's going to be great.

We can't just tell them that.

Now, do we tell them there's the benefit of heaven?

But the truth is, if they just hear about heaven, what's happening to so many people is there are people who are 25 years old that go, I don't want to go to heaven.

Sounds kind of boring.

Doesn't sound like.

Why?

Because we haven't taught them.

They don't know that the great almighty God is there that we get to have relationships with God.

Oh, fearful God, the great God who loves us.

And this is why knowing God is so important.

We don't just go, hey, we're going to give you a lollipop because you get that benefit and you get heaven.

We're not teaching them about true Christianity.

Understand, as we come together this morning.

My.

My purpose as a pastor, can I tell you, is not just to tell you the benefits of God.

They are great and wonderful.

My hope is that you'll run smack into the almighty God and you'll live a life that glorifies him.

You'll live in godliness that will join together going, hey, you know what this is about?

It's not even about my benefits.

This is about God almighty that we may worship and praise him.

Here we see a man of God.

What does that look like?

One who greatly divides in his commandments.

Verse two and three, his offspring will be mighty in the land.

The generation of the upright will be blessed.

Wealth and riches are in his home and his righteousness endures forever.

What do we see here?

We see the benefits of following the Lord.

We see the blessing.

It is throughout God's word.

Proverbs 27, the righteous who walk in his integrity, blessed are his children after him.

We see here these blessings of the home.

We see the blessings.

We see the blessings of things.

We see the blessings of stability.

But I wanted to start out the sermon because to understand godliness then helps us understand the benefits.

If you just, some people will just read this and go, God says wealth and riches are in my home.

Where are they at, God?

Now, first of all, what are wealth and riches that it's talking about?

It does say, right, there's the blessing in our home.

And I will tell you, parents who live out the gospel in their home, who live out the life, there is blessing in that home.

Do we read the scripture and go, there's a guarantee then if I do these three things, then my kids are going to follow the Lord?

No, right?

These are, one says it this way, a general statements rather than a promise that is made to every individual.

But it is speaking of the benefits.

What does it look like in your home?

It's going to transform your home.

What does it look like with the stuff, the things that we have?

Well, you live a life saying, God, what do you want me to do?

How can I serve you?

Trust everything in the Lord.

Take care of it.

Watch what happens.

Now, do we, do we live for that?

Do we go, man, I just waiting to, you know, eat and drink and be married.

No Bible calls the person who said that a fool in the Bible because we have too much, too many things to do to glorify the Lord.

And so there are times when the Lord protects us from that.

One pastor said, when gold comes in, the gospel normally goes out.

And for some of us, the Lord is protecting us and guarding us.

But we do see the blessing of a godly woman in a house.

We do see the blessing.

But what it looks like for someone to be at their workplace, to be a godly worker who shows up on time, who works hard, who doesn't lie or cheat.

It is a blessing to that place.

So here we do see the benefits.

Thankful to the Lord.

I am thankful the Lord's hand is upon my life.

What would I do without him?

So we see the man of God praising the Lord, delighting in the world, seeing blessing of the Lord.

And then verse four.

And I think this is so great because there's such a.

There's such a great balance in this passage.

Verse four says, light dawns in the darkness.

Verse seven says, he is not afraid of bad news.

Verse eight says, he looks in triumph on his adversaries.

When you read this, you don't go, oh, the benefits of the Lord.

Everything goes easy.

As long as I am do the right things, God will give me everything to go smooth.

No, that's not what it says.

Here, the scripture says, hey, you still live in a world with bad news.

You live in a world of darkness.

You live in a world of adversaries.

Let me show you what godliness is.

Godliness looks like in that because you still walk through that difficulty.

You still walk through those hardships.

So I said how godliness leads us to delight in his word.

Godliness leads us to wonderful earthly benefits.

And then I wrote, because I was reading a commentary and there's a word that popped out and I couldn't get it out of my head.

Godliness leads to a non-spasmatic life.

The word spasmatic, great word.

Like it's not brief or burst of things or up and down or it's not a spasmatic.

Some of you guys back.

That's what it does, right?

Like it's spasmatic, right?

But here, when you read these verses, it talks about in a place where things are difficult and darkness and there's bad news and adversaries.

Godly people don't have to be spas.

They're not all over the place.

There is this firm foundation.

There's there's to be solid.

There's to be a life built upon the rock of Jesus Christ.

There's one who trusts the Lord.

They're not scared.

They're not scared of fearful things that are going to pop out of nowhere.

They trust the Lord.

They don't walk around and worry about the adversaries because they live a life trusting the almighty God.

As I studied Psalms 112 this week, I read about his benefits, which are wonderful.

But as I studied just to see how consistent the Bible is, that he keeps calling us back to knowing him, trusting him, being in awe of him.

This is what will lead us to godliness.

This is what will lead us to holiness.

This is what will lead us to delight in his commandments.

This is what will lead us to delight in him.

This is what will lead us to trust in what he is doing and what he gives and what he doesn't give.

It leads us to a firm foundation that in a world that we have no clue what will happen tomorrow.

We have a God that's bigger than all of it.

So this morning, may we be challenged that if you're a Christian, be careful.

Heed the warning that we don't live a life focused on the benefits.

We live a life focused.

We live a life focused on godliness and following.

Oh, we get to celebrate in the things that God is doing.

How many times do we get to say, God, thank you?

Every time before you sit down and eat.

What are we doing?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Take a safe trip.

Thank you.

Sometimes we don't know.

The trip didn't end safe.

Still can have the firm foundation that our God is the great, holy, wonderful, awesome God whom we will praise.

Let's stand together.

Worship team's going to come.

We'll have one last song of worship.

Well, God, thank you for.

You are.

Look, I may continue to grow in knowing you worshiping you, Lord, I pray for some.

That's going to take some humility.

Lord, may they be humbled.

May we keep our eyes on you.

Thank you, Lord, in Jesus name.