First Timothy lesson 22 cont.

Okay, we are studying 1 Corinthians, and we are in chapter four, and we're working ourselves. I'm sorry, it's right here, it says T-I-M-O-T-H-Y, Corinthians, right? 1 Timothy 4, six through 11. And so, I'm going to read it and then we'll get after it.

In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following, but have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women.

On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. For bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all, for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance. For this we labor and strive because we have fixed our hope. on the living God who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers, to scribe and teach these things.

So last week we were talking about fables and then we spent some time talking about what godliness is. What is godliness? What would be another way to say it? Expand on that. The Lord Jesus Christ. He's godliness. He's a man who's godly, because he is God. Okay. So, we're down to verse 8. For bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

Let's talk about the whole concept of exercise. It's question six. Define the concept of exercise. And the word in Greek is gomazo. And it has to do with Greek athletes engaging in athletic exercise in the gym. It's like going to the health club. Here the exercise is not that of physical body, but that of one's mind, emotions, will, and spiritual part of a man, so it's interesting. He uses the metaphor of exercise to point out spiritual exercise.

So for those of you who go to the gym or walk or do whatever you do, why do you do it? Why do you try to stay in shape? or as much shape as you can. Why do you do it? Because you'll be looking good? No, because exercise, you exercise your triceps or your core. Whatever. Now if you don't exercise your core, but you just exercise one specific muscle, In my mind, there's an interesting analogy there. There are Christian teachers that exercise one muscle. They're into prophecy. That's it. Or they're into something else.

But why do you exercise? Why does a person go for a walk every day or every other day or go to the gym? Huh? To stay healthy? That's right, to stay healthy. So your body is gonna, we all know your body's gonna die, but hopefully not today. Donna? Well, I'm thinking too that if we're here to serve the Lord, being able to function for a longer period of time, which is a result of exercise, a lot of times helps. No, I think that's right. The real reason that you exercise is so that you can be available to the Lord for whatever he would want to do through you. Not that you can't be bed-stricken someplace and not serve the Lord there. You can. But I think it's like Paul says, he keeps his body under control. In other words, you keep Keep exercising it so you can get up in the morning and you're mobile and you can move around and your mind is sharp.

So let's talk about the same thing when it says, godliness is profitable for all things since it holds promise for the present life and for the life to come. And it talks about discipline. What's he talking about there? What's the discipline? for godliness? Easy question.

The more time that a believer spends in the word of God, the more disciplined he is in terms of spending more time in the word of God. What you find, I think, is that once you enter into that in your routine, where you spend time every day just alone with the Lord and the Word, then after a few days, if you miss one, you really do miss it, and you want to get back to it.

And so, it's like, you know, I was a jogger for 30 years, and if I missed a day, it drove me nuts. I was supposed to be out there jogging, you know. And so, or if I was flying someplace, the first thing we do when we arrived was figure out a place to run and put on our running shoes and go for a run. Why? Because that's part of what we were doing, to stay healthy.

It's the same thing spiritually. The most important thing about spiritual health is the daily consumption of God's word. And I don't, I mean, I can say, just read it. And that's a good place to start. But you're gonna find that if you spend time in God's word, initially just to read it, you will find that you're starting to learn some things. And you're starting to find out how God operates and what he does and that he's gracious and that he's loving and that, And the greatest of all things is that he desires for you to have a close fellowship with him. You only discover that in the Word. You know, somebody like me can stand up in front of you and tell you, but until you're actually learning that on your own, you don't really know what I'm talking about.

How many of you know what a runner's high is? A runner's high. You know what it is? You ever had it? If you're a runner, after about two weeks, you find in your runs, you get about a mile in and then you just start to float. It's called the runner's high. You don't feel the pain, you're just enjoying what you're doing, right? And that is a motivation in and of itself. Running is a great way to relax. But it's the same thing spiritually.

There's a spiritual, I hate to use the word high, but there's this growing intimacy with the Lord Jesus through his word that gives you peace and rest that you can't get anyplace else. And how else would you describe it? I don't know. But it's not the study of God's word so you can answer the questions in Sunday school. or it's just fellowship with him.

And so Paul, I think, uses the concept of exercise, mental exercise, and it says, mind, emotion, will. Spiritual part of the man. Your mind gets exercised, your emotions get exercised, and your will gets exercised. by spending time in God's Word. And we all hate the word study, so pick another word. Fellowshiping with the Lord in His Word. You know, study's an academic word.

Does that make sense? So, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man or woman of God may be fully capable, equipped for every good work. Guys, watch the NFL draft this week. The story of Sajur. He's supposed to be the number one draft choice, and he ended up going in the fourth round. He's 160 or something. Well, he's going to be a professional football player.

There's an awful lot of physical preparation and mental preparation to be a quarterback in the NFL. Same way spiritually. There's an awful lot of preparation to be useful of God in the Christian life. You know, just, you can't go to church on Sunday and just have your emotions tickled.

The point being that, again, back to the point that I'm making, I'm sure that between now and the time that Sadur shows up to the Cleveland Browns training camp, he's gonna study their playbook. He's gonna study the members of the team and what their tendencies are, and he's gonna talk a lot to the coaches. He's got a lot of work to do. Plus, he's gotta study the other teams. Well, not yet. Not until you actually, you gotta make the team first. Right.

So, you know, I really think that contemporary believers are lazy. They just are. They're spiritually lazy. They don't study. They don't know much. Everything's based on how they feel about it. And of course, that's the society we live in. You get the microphone stuck in your face and it says, how do you feel about the fact that the Eiffel Tower came down? I don't know. I don't have any feelings about it at all. Quite a wonderful crash.

I think also, I think more people rely on other people's thoughts rather than the word. You know, it's whatever this guy said or this book said or anything, you know, or even, you know, listening to Sunday school or, or, you know, the meeting at church, you know, they, they, they rely upon that rather than going to the word every day. I think that's great, but it's not the same exercise as getting in the Word and really getting the relationship. I think that's where a lot of Christians are today. Maybe you say they're lazy or whatever, but they're willing to listen to other people or read a book, but not read the book.

And I think that's where a lot of the weakness comes from. You know, we all admire guys that have been to seminary and learned Greek, but we know a lot of guys that have minors in Greek that don't know anything really about the scriptures. So when you become exercised by God's word, you're going to find that you're going to have an interest in the Greek words. You're just going to be part of it. Not that you have to learn the Greek language, but you're going to find out that, gee, verb tenses are really kind of important here. And gender is really important. Voice is important.

Just through the course of that, the discipline of study. I'm not a Greek scholar, but I'll give you an example. Roger and myself and Miles, we've been studying now for almost a year, this book that Miles found in a bookstore in Tennessee. It's only about that thick. by Kenneth Wiest, and it's learning how to use the Greek grammar. So we've been reading it, and then we talk about it, and we read it and talk about it. And I'm learning a ton from that. And like on my computer, if you have a good Bible software program, it's got the Greek in it, so you can refer to it.

All that's there, and you can't, I find now, after 40 years of doing this, that I can't study without having all of those props. I have to have them on the wall. When I first started, I thought, well, I'll just read it and wing it. I think most pastors read it and wing it, that's what they do.

And you find that within, the confines of that language and careful study in it, it's okay to see what other people say about it, people that you admire. And you're gonna find, you know what, they don't know everything. They may be really good on this point and terrible on this point. And so you learn to discern. You learn that, oh, that's the Lord Jesus I know, or that is not the Lord Jesus that I know. He's gracious, he's not legal. Well, how do you know the difference? If you don't understand grace, you sure don't know what legalism is. See that? Put the full armor of God on. Yeah, put it on. And then you learn stuff like that. Well, I'm commanded to do something that's already true. Well, how does that work? That whole concept. What is that all about?

Believers cannot even express what grace is. The definition of grace. Or I find out this cool thing, I was crucified with Christ. Wrap your head around what that means and spend time just thinking about that and reading about it. It'll change the way you look at everything.

I did die. I did get separated. Empty too. Yeah. And I'm looking at television and I'm looking at the world and what's going on out there and it dawns on me, wait a minute, that's their world, it's not mine. I'm dead to all that. I don't have to respond to them. There's so much, you spend your whole life just doing that.

All right, question seven, how much spiritual value is there in physical exercise? What do you think? I think at age it doesn't, I mean it helps you get prepared to understand the word of God, but it doesn't do anything for you to understand what God has for you personally. Yeah, yeah. Tom Malinson's a great example of this.

He's stuck in a room with a television set. And that's the only stimulus he gets. He's got some Christian books that people have sent him, and you can tell he's spent time in there, but he spends more time watching that boob tube than he does, you know. So he doesn't have spiritual stimulus very much, you know.

One of the reasons we fellowship is for that very reason. Why do we have Bible studies? Why do we do them? Why do we go to them? Because we need that stimulus. Yeah, but that's whether we have high blood pressure or low blood pressure. What about it? Yeah, I mean, that don't matter, really. I'll read some stuff that I've put down.

The words bodily exercise are found in a parallel passage from, of all these good spiritual heavyweights, Seneca. Expositores remark that this renders us almost certain that the primary reference is to gymnastic exercise. The context in which it is found in our Timothy passages refers to this bodily exercise to an absurd and profane theophacy. A theophacy is an esoteric philosophy based on ancient religion and myths of which discipline of the body was the chief or only practical expression.

And we have people like that today. That's why when we first started this, I asked the question, in Christianity today, would you describe fables today? And one of the things I put in there was CrossFit. CrossFit is an exercise program that you have to be dedicated to, and it'll take you over. I was thinking there, looking back at what you just said, that you're running. And look what it got you. Bad knees. Bad knees, right. I probably wasn't a runner. If it wasn't the knees, it would have been something else.

Well, with the advent of headphones, I found that I could listen to people, the Bible, and run at the same time. That was kind of cool. We still do that today, walking. So I think we can say that Paul does make a very good case of paralleling gymnastic exercise to spiritual exercise. You gotta go to the gym. You gotta do the workout. Donna. I listened to Macaulay on this, and it was interesting, but the analogy that he made there, he made the case that exercise, it's only good for while you're doing it.

As soon as you quit, you start going, you lose it. Whereas spiritual exercise has a cumulative value because you're growing in the Lord Jesus. That's a great point. He made that distinction between physical and spiritual, and being profitable in all things, not only now and going into the future. Would you say that's where balance comes in? No. You know what? I don't think there's any balance. I think you're either all in with the Lord or not. There isn't any balance.

But you've still got to take care of your body. Well, I think it's a false mindset that if I go all in for the Lord, I'm going to neglect these other things, like my family, like my job, like my physical fitness, like the things that matter in the world.

No, as a matter of fact, they'll be in the proper proportions that they should be because you're spiritually awake. you know, and actually you'll go do it, you'll be, you know, your life will be a lot more disciplined, but it won't be because you've gotten it out.

I guess I'd maybe add, well, or change for Donna, what Donna says, that it's all profitable. The metaphor here or the analogy is that if you don't exercise your atrophy, I think the same thing as the word, even though it is profitable, what you put in, if you're away from the word, you lose it. Even though it's profitable, if I'm not in the Word, and I just decide not to read for the next three years, or not go to a Bible study, or whatever, all this that I've learned is going to atrophy, and I'm going to be more susceptible to the world. I'm going to be all that. So I think it is a very good analogy of exercise. If you don't do it, you lose it. I think if you're not in the Word all the time, or in a Bible study, or studying, or whatever, you're weak.

You know what I see happen? People get really interested in Bible study, and they're reading, and they get a few buzz phrases down. And they live on those buzz phrases for ten years. They're not studying anymore, but they have the buzz phrase which makes the people in the audience think, oh, that person really studies. No, they don't. They adopted the buzz phrase. See, our buzz phrase is whatever blows your hair back. Unfortunately, that just doesn't work. I don't know. You're not going to live that down, Mike.

So the next question is, to what extent is godliness profitable? I think this one and the next question kind of blend together, and it's interesting in that it's not only for this life, but the life to come. Yeah. So why is it profitable, godliness? I'll give you the Greek word here. I can't say it. E-U-S-E-B-E-I-A. That's what the word godliness means in Greek. And the translation is reverence, respect towards God. Isn't that interesting? Because of the promises he's given us. Keep going, there's more to it than that. I'll tell you what Vincent says.

He said, godliness involves a promise for this life and for the next. But for this life, as it reflects the heavenly life, is shaped and controlled by it and bears its impress. Do you understand what he said? He said godliness involves a promise for this life God's promises, and for the next life also. And then he qualifies, but for this life, as it reflects the heavenly life, it's shaped and controlled by it, and bears its impress.

In other words, the life to come, the study of God's word and the growing knowledge and the grace of the Lord Jesus, like Colossians says, seek those things which are above, for Christ sits at the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above and not on things of the earth.

What does that do? It imports back to this mess the heavenliness of the resurrected life. And only believers can do that. Non-believers can be moral and clean up their act and be disciplined. But we're not talking about that. We're talking about a life that's heavenly. A life that's lived like the Lord Jesus lives in the heavenlies. And the believer has the privilege, through the study of God's word, to not only find out how that life functions, not for imitation, but to know the person who is that life who will conform you to who He is. And so it will show up in your life. And you don't have to, you don't even know it sometimes. You don't have to get your little notes out. So am I acting godly now? I'm just living. Well, I think most Christians, they have to have them train wrecks. That's part of the growth process. Well, who has to train Rick?

I always love that question. If I'm a growing believer and I'm a young believer and here I am trying to, and I'm learning and I'm studying, but the old man is still dominating what I'm about, because he never shuts up. And I have what I call the Roman seven experience, where I really want to do and live this heavenly life, but I can't do it. I fail every time. I'm following all the rules. My leaders are telling me do this, do that, do this, do that.

And I haven't yet discovered the secret. What's the secret? It's not principle. Notice the question that Paul asked in Romans, I think it's 723. Who is gonna deliver me from this present evil? Who's gonna do it? Not principle, what's gonna do it? It's always a who.

So as I begin to understand that principle, this discipline that the Lord has caused me to be developed in and study in God's word, what's really happening? I'm beginning to know the who, who he is personally. And he starts to have an influence on me. Do you see that? And it's not because he reaches in his pocket and he gives him a refrigerator list. He loves me and I love him and I wanna be like him. And he said, great, let's do that. And I'll show you in the word, the more you know me, the more you'll be like me because you already have the life.

Does that make sense? So it isn't a matter of going to seminary, doing spiritual push-ups, walking old ladies across the street, or writing big checks. It's knowing Christ. That's personally. Now. Not when you die and go to heaven. Now. You've already been to the cross. Positionally, I have. Right. And you see that it's an open tomb. And you're on resurrection day. That's all well and good, but where's Him in all of that? Where is the Lord Jesus in what you just said? Basically, me and Christ and Christ and me. We understand that He's in us.

Yeah, I mean, we can say, well, yeah, we were crucified, we were buried, we were resurrected. Those are the facts about what He did, and I'm included in those facts, but those facts don't tell me I can look at Him face to face. But the Word of God will teach me that, and I'll know when it happens. Does this also mean, this verse also mean that the more we know Christ now, will that affect our experience of heaven and him forever and eternity? Yeah.

You know, speaking of spiritual cliches, I used to have one years ago where I said most theologians are gonna go to heaven with their books under their arms, right? And they'll be walking down the road and they'll bump into Jesus Christ and they'll say, excuse me, and they'll walk right around him. They got their books, but they don't have Him. Yeah, so that when we go to glory, guess what?

We're not gonna have to, which one of you guys is Jesus Christ? No, it's Him. I can't wait to be there. He is our life. So from the resurrection, He establishes us in our position. Yeah, and I think positional truth is, Extremely important. Because it tells us what God has done, not only for us, but really to us. It's all done. It's all done.

And so here we go, through the study of God's Word, I find that out. But then I want that implemented in my life. I want to live like that. And I find out that there aren't that the Bible, especially Paul's epistles, is not a workbook to fill in the blanks. It's a book that was written, a vehicle to expose, to reveal the very person of Christ to me. I'll give you a good example. Most of you guys know Brian White, right?

By the way, he's going to be teaching on the pulpit three weeks from now. He teaches Sunday school in a church he's in in Georgia. So I've been listening to him and we talk. He said to me one day, a couple weeks ago, he said, he said, does this ever happen to you? He said, I had an hour or so to sit down and work on my Sunday school. And he said, I stood up three hours later and I went, wow, that was really cool. Three hours went by and he was so focused on the Lord Jesus and what he was saying, he wasn't even aware of the time. I said, yeah, I know what that's like. I think every believer needs to know what that's like.

You've got your Bible, your fellowship with people that know that. Around this place, you're not given a bunch of rules to follow. The issue is Christ. He's the issue. I think it was Chester McCauley said, why do we always have to go by That's because dinner is going to be ready at five.

So for next week, I want to explore more of this, about how what we do here affects the afterlife. I think that's very intriguing and curious to me. All right, you guys do your homework. We're going to talk about the afterlife next week. Whatever afterlife means. I'm sorry we didn't get any farther. Well, I've always thought that we go at the Lord's pace. If I'm slow, you're gonna be slow. Let's close.

Father, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your Son, our dear Lord Jesus. And we thank you for everything that you've put in place so that we might behold his glory and know him and walk with him day by day. We pray in his precious name, amen.