The Epistle for today from the First Letter of St Timothy, Chapter 4 is important. I believe that if we understand and act on the advice from St Timothy in this pastoral letter, you and I, with prayer and action, can change our lives. We can change many of the habits that are part of how we are now living. St Timothy wrote this pastoral letter to guide the people around him to draw closer to God, and also to guide us who read his words centuries later to draw closer to God.

Let’s listen to St. Timothy’s advice. Beginning with verse 7, he wrote: “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 sure and worthy of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those who believe.  Command and teach these things. Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Till I come, attend to the public reading of scripture, to preaching, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have . . .” I find St Timothy’s opening phrase very powerful: “Train yourself in godliness.” So today I ask myself and I ask each of you, young and old. How can we train ourselves in godliness? That is the title of this sermon: “How can we train ourselves in godliness?”

Remarkably, the word “godliness” does not appear in either a British or an American dictionary. The word “godlessness” is there; and that is an indication of modern culture. For so many people, God is not present in their lives, but happily God is present in our lives. I think it is right to define “godliness” as being like God, having the characteristics of God Himself. As St Timothy says, “we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all [people], especially of those who believe.” That is the key idea—we set our hope on the living God. He offers every human being guidance and salvation; and He offers that guidance and salvation especially to us who believe in Him. This guidance from God is personal to each of us. He can give each of us a sense of how to live, of what to do in each situation in our lives. The question that confronts us is not “What would Jesus do in this situation?” No, the question that confronts is, “What should I do in this situation, that is in keeping with my hope in the living God?”

Having called us to be like God, St Timothy then turns to our bodies and says bluntly, “bodily training is of some value.” In other words, whether we are young or old, we need to exercise. We need to balance how much we eat with how much energy we require for our daily lifestyle. If we eat more than we use in exercise, we will put on weight. If we eat less than we use in exercise, we will lose weight. I and several of my children and grandchildren have little pedometers that we wear that measure the distance we walk each day by recording the number of steps we take. Then at the end of each week, there is a scoreboard we share that reports how we are doing. Ideally, it is good to walk about 10,000 steps a day, that is, 70,000 steps a week. The top position each week is held by either my 12-year-old granddaughter or my daughter, or by one of my sons who enjoys running half-marathons. The bottom position is consistently held either by me or one of my other sons who works very hand at his desk. What is important is not the competition between us, but our willingness to be honest and to be accountable to ourselves for our own actions—for how much we eat and how much we exercise.

The cover story in the 16 January 2016 magazine New Scientist is called “Habits—Making Good [Habits], Breaking Bad [Habits], How to take control of your brain’s autopilot.” The article points out that “scientifically, habits are defined fairly broadly as actions performed routinely in certain contexts and situations, often unconsciously. Once a habit is formed, you might think of it like initiating a program that runs on autopilot”—something we do every day without thinking about it. Children, can you think of something you do every day without thinking much about it? . . . Yes, getting up, eating breakfast, going to school, playing with friends. Unfortunately, some of our habits are not so good—like not praying much, or eating too much, or not doing what we intend to do—a practice with which I am quite familiar known as “procrastination”—defined as “putting off something that should be done straight away.” Many people who study habits think like Gretchin Rubin in her excellent book, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, that “the first step to better habits is gaining self-knowledge and insights into your [own] personality, [understanding your own] triggers and ingrained responses [that show you what you do without thinking about it]”—like not exercising or not praying or eating too much.

In his sermon, On the Holy Spirit 14.33, St Basil the Great wrote profoundly about habits. He preached; and I quote: “Surely only an infantile mind, like a baby that can only drink milk, is ignorant of the great mystery of our salvation. Education progresses gradually. The school of righteousness [in which we learn godliness] attempts to bring us to maturity by first teaching us easy, elementary lessons suited for our limited intelligence. Then God, who provides us with every good thing, leads us to the truth, by gradually accustoming our darkened eyes to its great light. In the deep reaches of his wisdom and the unsearchable judgments of his intelligence, he spares our weakness and prescribes a gentle treatment. He knows our eyes are accustomed to dim shadows, so he uses these at first.”

The advice that St Basil the Great offered in the fourth century about how to learn godliness is still true—“Education progresses gradually.” The article in New Scientist offers five tips about how to build a good habit or break a bad habit: first, schedule it; second, be specific; third, go easy on yourself; fourth, start now; and fifth, be patient. A key suggestion is to break “the day into sections. That way, if you eat too many doughnuts at a morning meeting, you don’t give up and binge for the rest of the day. Rather, you start fresh at noon and try again.” The same advice applies to prayer—if we are very busy or forget to pray in the morning, we can set aside more time in the evening.

I close with an important point from St John Chrysostom about St Timothy’s advice: “Do not neglect the gift you have.” St John Chrysostom points out that preachers achieve far less than you will achieve when you relate to each other. His precise words are: “If you are willing, you will have more success with [helping] each other than [I] can have. For you are with one another for a longer time, and you know more than [I] of each other’s affairs. Further, you are not ignorant of each other’s failings, and you have more freedom of speech, and love and intimacy. These are no small advantages for teaching but great and opportune moments for [teaching],” preached St John Chrysostom. “You will be more able than [I] both to reprove and exhort [that is, to correct and to encourage]. And not this only, but because I am but one, whereas you are many; you will be able, however many, to be teachers [yourselves]. Therefore, I entreat you,”—that is, I plead with you—concluded St John Chrysostom, “do not neglect this gift.”

So it is: St Timothy and St Basil the Great and St John Chrysostom and the latest scientific study of habits are offering the same advice. Let us support each other as we seek to develop improved habits for exercise, for prayer, or for other important goals in our lives.  Let us not be hard on ourselves. We do not change the habits of a lifetime because a preacher suggests it might be a good idea. We change our habits because we live and pray together as a strong Christian community who in prayer and worship and confession to God before our Spiritual Director ask God’s help to develop new habits and also ask our friends to help us.