Healthy Enough to Fight

Well, we are halfway through the year.

Let’s check in for a second: how are your New Years Resolutions coming?

I know at the beginning of the year, I had goals for how many times a week I wanted to work out.

I haven’t completely fallen off the wagon, but I haven’t exactly stuck with it like I planned. How about you?

I am sure a lot of us started off the year with high hopes and goals for our health.

Here’s what is interesting, though. Getting healthy is actually pretty straight-forward.

We could argue over the specifics, but if you want to improve your health, you have to do two main things: eat right and exercise.

That’s basically all it takes to get healthier to some extent…eat the right things, and move the right ways.

Most of us can get by with a few extra pounds, or not as much strength as we would like, but certain people can’t get away with that.

You know who has to watch their food intake and exercise output religiously? Professional fighters.

Fighting for a living, whether through MMA, BJJ, boxing, wrestling, or any other combat sport requires intense training and serious discipline to stay healthy to fight.

You know who else fights for a living?

We do.

No, we don’t climb in the octagon or fight it out in the ring, but daily, as believers we are called to fight the good fight.

We are fighting for the truth, defending the honor of the God who loved us enough to take on flesh and die in our place. We are fighting against those who would deny or distract from those truths.

We are going toe-to-toe with the enemy of our souls, and the enemy of God. We are even having to fight against our own sinful desires to see God honored in every corner of our lives.

If you and I need are going to make it, then we need to make sure we are healthy enough to fight.

How do we get healthy? The same way a boxer would…diet and exercise.

We will see from this passage that we need a steady diet, rich in God’s Word, and constant, hard training in godliness to be healthy enough to fight.

You ready?

Let’s learn first, then, how we have to...

1) Feast on God’s Word.

We are going to have to look at this passage in stages, so let’s go through it a piece at a time.

Read verses 1-2 with me.

This reminds us of what we have already seen: there were people in Ephesus teaching things that didn’t line up with the truth of who God is and what he has done, which we covered last week.

Paul calls them out, though, and exposes what is really going on.

These people aren’t just teaching their bad, delusional theories. They are liars, and the hypocrisy they teach is based off the work of demons.

They have turned aside from the faith, that body of truth we talked about last week, and are instead following all kinds of ideas that have their roots in demonic forces that are trying to undermine the work God is doing in redeeming the world.

Have you ever heard someone speaking about something, and thought, “How in the world could someone believe something so wrong?”

Well, this verse gives a partial explanation—their consciences are seared.

They are so accustomed to the lies they believe that they are calloused and don’t even see the hypocrisy of what they believe.

Paul would tell Timothy in his next letter to him that a pastor must gently rebuke people like this with patience, hoping that God would bring them to repentance:

2 Timothy 2:26 CSB

Then they may come to their senses and escape the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

They are blinded, trapped by Satan, feeding on his lies.

Specifically, they are demanding that people abstain from marriage and from eating certain foods.

This isn’t saying, “You probably shouldn’t have had that donut.” Instead, they were likely trying to reinstitute the dietary laws of the Old Testament.

They were making your standing with God dependent on what you do or don’t do, not on the grace of God displayed through Jesus’ death on the cross.

Paul then stops to give us a principle of how to think about anything we eat, or anything we do, really.

Look at verses 4-5...

What is Paul saying here? Well, let’s think about what he isn’t saying, first.

For one, he isn’t saying, “As long as you thank God for it, you can do whatever you want!”

You can’t make unholy actions holy by being grateful. If I say, “God, thank you for the new car you are about to give me,” and then I go out, murder someone, and steal their car, it isn’t okay!

The same is true about marriage and food, which are specifically being addressed here.

Paul isn’t saying that you can eat chocolate cake all day every day and be okay, or that if you get married for any reason at all, it’s okay as long as you thank God.

He is addressing those who say that marriage or certain foods are inherently bad, not that there aren’t other restraints on what you should and shouldn’t do.

So, then, what is he saying?

He is saying that marriage and food and experiences in our physical bodies are good, and we should thank God as we seek to enjoy them in their God-honoring contexts.

That is one of the reasons why many of us stop and pray before we eat food.

It isn’t because we are hoping that this cheeseburger and fries are suddenly going to have magical healing properties that make them good for us; it is that we are acknowledging that even food itself is a good gift from a loving God who cares for us.

In the Old Testament, God did declare certain foods unclean. He did that as a picture for his people of how they could live out their faith before a watching world, showing that they were a separate people who were uniquely called by God.

Jesus fulfilled all of those pictures, so we see clearly in Acts that God has declared all foods clean for believers, so now we don’t have to keep those distinctions.

We can enjoy both marriage and food for God’s glory, so long as we are not doing that in ways that hurt ourselves, hurt others, or break God’s commands.

Now, it is 2019, so someone might look at this verse and make a conclusion that isn’t there.

Our state Attorney General just this week came out officially in favor of legalizing marijuana.

So, if marijuana is legalized, is it okay for Christians to smoke weed?

After all, everything created by God is good, right?

Again, you have to put this command in the context of all of Scriptures.

First, notice that he is specifically addressing food here, not intoxicating beverages or substances.

Second, Scripture is clear that we are called to live self-controlled lives and not to live under the control of anything but the Spirit of God, whether that is alcohol, marijuana, food, sex, approval of others, or whatever else drives you.

Many who use marijuana do so as an escape to numb the pain of the struggle they are facing, and biblically, we are called to face those situations head-on instead of checking out.

That doesn’t mean that it is wrong to take medication, even for mental illnesses like depression and anxiety.

It does mean, however, that we reject living lives of escape and numbness, whether that is through busyness, pornography use, substance abuse, excessive exercise, etc.

There is more we could say here, and I would be happy to talk offline with you about it.

You cannot

However, let’s bring it back around.

The false teachers in Ephesus were eating up the lies that Satan threw their way, and they were feeding them right out to the people.

They were denying the good things that God created, tying people’s salvation to their diet or marital status instead of to the finished work of Christ on the cross.

So, what are we supposed to do instead?

Instead of eating up Satan’s lies, we are called to feast on God’s word.

Look at verse 6...

As a pastor, Timothy was in a unique place to correct these errors and point out the beauty of what God made.

Instead of eating up the demons’ lies, he was nourished by the word of God.

Do you want to be healthy enough to stay in the fight? Then you need a steady diet of God’s Word.

You need to gather regularly with other believers to talk about what God has taught us in the Bible. We do that here on Sunday mornings in the service, but it gets better when you are meeting with a group.

Join a Sunday School class or a small group and dive into God’s word with other believers.

You can’t expect to be healthy, though, if you only eat once a week.

Sunday mornings and your small group are not enough spiritual food for you to stay strong all week long.

You need to be feasting daily on God’s word.

Listen: I get it. Life is busy, our lives are scattered, the kids are loud, and you have deadlines at work.

In the middle of all of that, though, don’t lose sight of the beauty of what you have in your hands when you hold your Bible.

There is nothing magic about this book. It is fake leather, glue, and paper.

However, it contains the very words of God, which he has given to us and miraculously preserved for thousands of years so that we could know him and know who we are and where we fit in the grand story of history.

Here’s how John Piper said it:

“Be amazed that you have a Bible. Get up in the morning, hold this book, and weep for joy. Open it and expect the same Spirit who inspired the Scriptures will now illumine them for you.” (John Piper)

Why? Because in this book, we see all the great truths we said we are called to defend.

We see that we are created by God and loved by him. We see that all the problems in the world come from the fact that we rejected him and did what we wanted. We see that his love for what he has made caused him to come and die in our place so that we could have life and be restored to him.

In this book, we see that right will win and evil will be once and for all, finally and fully defeated.

Why do we care more about our Facebook feeds or the latest outrage in the headlines than we do about the very word of the living God?

Do you wonder why you don’t feel like you can make it as a Christian?

Do you wonder why you are always tired in your spiritual walk?

Maybe you aren’t eating right! Pour yourself into God’s Word, listen to teaching, grow in what you know of him, and eat his Word up!

Then, unlike the false teachers in Ephesus, you will know what incredibly good gifts God has given us, and you will be able to enjoy them with thanksgiving to him since you enjoy them in line with his word and in an attitude of prayerful gratitude.

Feast on his word!

Here’s the hard part: that takes work!

There is always something to distract us away from feasting on God’s Word, and that’s where the second part comes in.

Just like with physical health, our spiritual health requires more than what we eat.

We must also...

2) Train yourself in godliness.

Pick back up with verses 7-10.

Feasting on God’s Word doesn’t do you any good if you aren’t living out what you learn!

Again, we see Paul telling Timothy not to get involved with all the speculations of the false teachers.

Instead, we are called to train yourself in godliness.

This word “train” here is the word that you would normally use for “exercise” or physical training.

Paul uses this picture because the false teachers were focused on training the body through abstaining from marriage and certain foods.

Instead of focusing on that, Paul says that we are to focus on living God-honoring lives.

So, then, you are called to your godliness like you would train any for health and competition.

It really is the perfect picture in many ways.

It takes time to master physical skills and to grow stronger.

In the same way, you don’t immediately know how to honor God in every aspect of your life the very moment you get saved.

How many of you remember the old movie, The Matrix?

For those who don’t remember it, the basic premise is that the world as you know it is an illusion.

Neo, the main character, joins with others who have figured all this out, and they train him to fight against the beings that have programmed the illusion we live in.

One of the coolest parts of this is this chair they have. When you sit in the chair, they plug this thing into your neck, and then they can download everything you want to know about a particular subject.

In one scene, the plug Neo in, and when he comes out of it, he looks up and says, “I know Kung Fu”.

There are days where I wish the Christian life was like that, but unfortunately, it isn’t!

I wish I had some awesome chair in my office that I could plug you in to, and then you would look up and say, “I know how to pray. I know how to share my faith. I know how to read Greek and Hebrew. I know how to discern God’s will for my life with complete consistency.”

It just doesn’t work that way, though!

You have access to all the blessings of salvation, and you have all the power of the Holy Spirit available to you from the very moment you are saved, but it takes time to learn and grow in Christ-likeness.

That’s why Paul wrote to the Philippian church:

Philippians 2:12 CSB

Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

You aren’t working to earn your salvation, but you are working it out into every corner of your life.

Why? That gets into verse 8...

Paul here acknowledges that there may be some benefit to training the body, but it is limited.

In other words, if you followed the rules the false teachers set out, maybe you would live a healthier life.

However, it wouldn’t do anything to save them, because our salvation isn’t based on what we do or don’t do.

Some people watch their food intake or exercise like crazy because they are trying to cheat death. They are trying to stay as healthy as they can for as long as they can so they can squeeze every ounce out of life.

As believers, though, we realize that there is more to our existence than just what happens in the 60, 70,80+ years most of us will live on earth.

The false teachers’ mindset plays out in our day in the, “how close can I get to sin?” game that we so often play.

We want to do what we can to stay physically healthy where possible, but only as a tool to be able to honor God through serving him as long and as much as he will allow.

You see, you can eat Keto or Paleo or whatever diet you think you are supposed to eat, and you can do it 100%. You can go to Fit Body Boot Camp, Crossfit, Planet Fitness, or whatever you do, and you can do it every day, but you are still going to die.

When you are dating, and you acknowledge that the Bible clearly teaches that premarital sex is sin, you ask, “Well, I know sex is sin, but how close can we get? I mean, this or that isn’t really sex, it’s just...”

When you stand before God, do you think he is going to be impressed with your mile time, your BMI, or your deadlift PR?

We do the same in other areas. “I can drink some, but I can’t get drunk, so how buzzed can I get without being drunk?” or “I know being lazy is sinful, but how little can I do and still get by?”

Those questions are coming from the wrong heart attitude, because they are focused on what can I do externally to look like I am following Jesus.

You are training the body, but you aren’t doing anything for your soul.

Yes, you do need to work on boundaries in your dating life, but training your soul in godliness is more about, “How can we honor God by modeling his love for us in this stage of our relationship,” instead of, “how far is too far?”

Training our lives in godliness asks, “Why am I having this beer or this glass of wine? Is it to take the edge off the day so I don’t have to work through my problems? Am I missing out on what God is wanting to do in me by trying to numb my pain?”

Instead of doing as little as we can to get by, we train ourselves in godliness to say, “How can I accurately reflect the honest, creative, hard-working God who saved me as I carry out my job this week?

We need to be training ourselves in godliness, because that is both beneficial in this life and in the life to come!

Listen to this:

1 Corinthians 3:12–15 CSB

If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one’s work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved—but only as through fire.

The godly life you live here not only impacts your quality of life now, but it also impacts some level of reward in eternity!

I don’t know fully what that means, but I do know that I have to train myself to godliness.

Here’s the thing about exercise, though: it is hard.

I am not saying you should puke every time you work out, but it takes work.

The same is true of godliness. Look down at verses 9-10...

Did you catch those words? We labor and strive.

Although the meaning has changed somewhat, that word “strive” is the Greek word from which we get the English word “agonize”.

Living the Christian life isn’t easy.

Training yourself in godliness, fighting against the way the rest of the world works, trying to honor God in everything is incredibly hard.

So, why do it?

Because all our hope is in the living God who died for us, was buried, and was raised from the dead so we could have new life.

He is our Savior who offers salvation to any who will believe.

Our hope of being right with God isn’t based on whether or not we are married, or how well we can adhere to dietary laws.

Our hope is in Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection.

In just a few minutes, we are going to observe the Lord’s Supper, which is a time where we commemorate his death for us.

As we prepare our hearts for that time, let me ask you to examine your spiritual life right now:

What are you eating? Satan’s lies or God’s word?

How are you training? More about your physical body, what you do and don’t do, or are you striving to live a godly life in every aspect, fighting to keep going?

What needs to change this week for you to be healthy enough to fight?