"But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." (1 Tim. 4:7-8)

A few years ago the well known Os Guiness wrote a fascinating little book called "Fit Bodies Fat Minds". It quite well sums up what Paul in this passage is writing about and what Christians have faced in all ages. We live in a culture that is obsessed with the body while the mind grows flabby and shrivels. Os Guiness writes about having buttocks of steel and minds of silly putty. This is all too real in evangelical Christianity.

The imperative comes to us as ministers, elders, and members that we do not fall into this disgrace.

Christianity is often mocked for its anti-intellectualism. Bertrand Russell mockingly said "Most Christians would rather die than think-in fact they do". Christianity has been beset especially since the Second Great Awakening in the early 19^th century with flabby, anti-creedal, non-analytical thinking. Dwight L. Moody is reported to have said, "My theology! I didn't know I had any." Another evangelist said, "If I had any creed, I would sell it to a museum." Billy Sunday said, "I do not know any more about theology than a jack rabbit knew about ping-pong." Lewis Sperry Chafer, founder of Dallas Theological Seminary, said, "The very fact that I did not study a prescribed course in theology made it possible for me to approach the subject with an unprejudiced mind and be concerned only with what the Bible actually teaches."

The apostle Paul was aware of such foolishness and did not want young Timothy to fit any of the above descriptions.

Paul has a series of imperatives in this fourth chapter of instruction for preachers and members in the church. And it is summed up in this text in vss. 7 & 8.

The Command to Train

Paul commands Timothy to exercise. Exercise takes self-discipline. Needless to say, our culture is virtually devoid of self-discipline. That is why more and more laws are being passed and more and more prisons are being built. What can stem this tsunami? The church! We have to get back into the gym. Paul is in effect saying just that in this text to us preachers and to our people. Paul was fond of using athletics, or sports, as analogies in his teaching. He also used military figures of speech to teach us, the church, that being Christians takes vigorous activity. Those who are unfit, untrained, are not going to make it. They won't make the team. In military language they will be classified as 4-F. In sports language they will be sitting in the bleachers eating pretzels and drinking beer. If they do get into the military they will be the first to get shot and come home in body bags!

In writing what he did, Paul was profoundly aware of the culture of his day. And he knew the answer and mightily strove for the strengthening of the ministry and the church.

So Paul commands Timothy to get into the gymnasium and do the exercising and training needed for the job of ministry in the church, so the people in the church will not only have fit bodies but fit minds.

Exercise yourself, train. This is the command to the ministers and officers of the church and also to the members of the church. Get into the gym! The word Paul uses here for "exercise", "train", comes from the Greek word from which we get the word "gymnasium". The Lord demands that we get out of the bleachers and onto the field.

What Is the Program?

Since the players on the team (ministers and members) today often look no more fit than those sitting in the bleachers and eating pretzels and drinking beer, we Christians need to get with the program.

The program is remarkably simple. The equipment needed is remarkably simple, especially compared to how the modern physical fitness centers and gymnasiums are outfitted today. Churches often have all kinds of toys and programs but are full of fat minds!

For the spiritual training, for the fitness of the mind, Paul prescribes a very simple program. He identifies it in vs. 5, "the word of God and prayer." Bibles come cheap today. The Gideons organization gives them away free. Prayer costs absolutely nothing but time.

The program is so simple and costs so little it is virtually ignored. In vs. 6, Paul speaks of "good doctrine". That means sound, healthy doctrine that makes for sound, healthy minds. How much of today's church is fed junk food with no nourishment-full of mind-fattening, mind-numbing, and mind-paralyzing calories!

On the other hand, Paul prescribes the healthy diet here-real nourishment, the Word and prayer. On its face this seems silly. How often are there beautiful church buildings with lousy equipment? God gives us His Word, the Bible, the divine Scriptures, and the sacraments of the covenant. Those sacraments are the Lord's Supper where the elements are a thimble full of wine and a tiny cube of bread. In Holy Baptism we have a small dish of water where a drop or so of water is put on our children's heads. But the diligent, faithful use of these things keeps us from brains of silly putty!

The use of these things does not raise a lot of "Oohs and aahs!" But it should raise some hearty "Amens"!

The Word and Sacraments and Prayer are all that Paul recommends to young Timothy entering the ministry. This is all that Paul offered to the churches where he ministered and it yielded people who "turned the world upside down" or rather turned the world right side up once more.

Our culture, our world today, has become upside down, inverted, and perverted. That is what sin does. Our culture does not even know what marriage is anymore. People do not get it that sex is for in the bond of marriage. What about us in the Reformed circles? Is our message getting through to people in the pews? Are we preaching to where the people are?

The Roman world of Paul's day had the sword, the breastplate, shields, helmets, girded loins, and complete body armor. What were Paul's weapons? The Word of God and prayer. David conquered Goliath "in the name of the Lord". These weapons in our world look silly but they save us and our people from brains of silly putty. The gospel of Jesus Christ saves people from sin and from going to hell.

So the program Paul prescribes here is the Word of God and prayer. We all know that already. But we have to get to the gym and do the exercising. God calls us to do the truth and obey Him. It was so hard for the Israelites in the O.T. to learn that. It seems so hard for us to learn that. But learn it we must. There can be no Christian without this.

What Is the Goal of this Training?

The goal of training and exercising in the spiritual gymnasium is godliness. Paul is very clear on this in vs. 7 where he says "train yourself for godliness".

Healthy doctrine and sound Biblical preaching produce sound, healthy people in the pews. The moral, ethical decline in our country can be traced right to the door of the church, more accurately to the pulpit of the church. A recent president of our country made the statement "It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is' is". Likely that came from the eisegesis that is done in the pulpits of all too many churches. Eisegesis is reading the Bible and preaching it to mean whatever you want it to mean. Such preaching becomes drivel.

When preachers in churches preach drivel the people shrivel. It is very simple. The people in the churches begin to look like the people outside the churches. The church and the world become one. Whereas the Bible makes it emphatically clear that there is an antithesis between the church and the world. Godliness on the other hand is people beginning to look more and more like Jesus. It is becoming conformed to the image of Christ.

What did our Savior pray for in John 17? He prayed, "sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." (Jn.17:17) He went on in His prayer saying, "As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on me through their word. That they all may be one, as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which you gave me I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one." (Jn. 17:17-22)

Jesus tells us that the sum of his commandments is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." (Mt.22:37ff.) Have we not largely forgotten the mind in all this?

Paul says in Rom. 12:2, "be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." For this to happen we must get into the gym and train and exercise both as ministers in the pulpit and members in the pews. So both in the pulpit and in the pew it is a matter of exercising, training in the Word and prayer. This, Paul says, has promise for the life that now is and for that which is to come. Being physically fit is good. Christians are people who above all are in good shape spiritually. Lean bodies, fat minds! Let that not be said of us!

In considering the articles of the Apostles Creed we are considering the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. The articles are the most basic truths that God has revealed in His Word. These truths we must understand if we claim to be Christians. We need to be able to articulate these truths intelligently to the world in which we live. One of the great tragedies of our post-modern era is that so many professing Christians are ignorant of what they claim to profess. That will simply not do.

In this article we consider what is meant by the statement "Our Lord" referring of course to "Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son". It is interesting that in regard to Jesus Christ the Apostles Creed does not mention the word "Savior" but it does mention the word "Lord". Of course, our Catechism goes on in Q29 to explain that the word "Jesus" means "Savior". However, the title "Lord" is explicitly mentioned.

In light of this, what an anomaly it is that modern evangelicalism is abysmally weak on the Lordship of Christ while claiming the Savior-hood of Christ. Christ is the Savior of none but of those of whom He is also the Lord. Christ the Lord and Jesus as Savior are inseparable in the divine Scriptures. Over and over again the N.T. writers use the phrase "Jesus Christ our Lord," (Rom. 1:3; 1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:2, etc.) The point is that the Savior of people is also the Lord of people. Those two propositions cannot be and are not separated anywhere in the Bible.

That Jesus is our Lord has implications for us that are just as enormous as that Jesus is our Savior. Evangelicalism in effect says that once you have received Jesus as your Savior, you should move on to the next step and also receive him as your Lord. Well, to receive Jesus as Savior is also at the same time to receive him as Lord. Jesus is Lord and the two cannot be divided. You cannot claim to be saved from your sins if you do not live consciously under Jesus as Lord of your life.

First, I want to consider that Jesus is Lord. And secondly, that Jesus is OUR Lord.

Jesus is Lord

The Lordship of Yahweh is basic throughout the Bible. In Dt. 6:4 we have the famous "Shema." This Shema is "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord." God's covenant people recited these words every morning and evening according to Dt. 6:7. In Ps. 136:2-3, he is called "the God of gods" and the "Lord of lords". The apostle Paul reiterates these words in 1 Tim. 6:15, when he says Jesus is "the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords." The Lord in the O.T. is the same Lord in the N.T.

Our Catechism in Q50 tells us that Jesus is in a special way the Lord of his people. It says "Christ ascended into heaven for this end, that He might there appear as the Head of His Church, by whom the Father governs all things".

However, Jesus is also Head and Lord of the universe. Jesus was there with the Father when God created the heaven and the earth. Moses says explicitly in Gen. 1:26, in the creation of man that "God said, Let us make man in our image." Christ seated at the right hand of God is Head over all. Paul says in Eph. 1:20ff., that God set Christ "far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things." If Christ is not the Lord of all, He is not Lord at all.

It is through Jesus that God the Father rules over all things, including the state, politics, the family, the church. Christ is indeed the King over all the kings. Christ is indeed the Lord over all the lords of this earth. Abraham Kuyper was right when he famously said "there is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ does not cry out, ‘this is mine!' This belongs to me!"

Christ the Lord is sovereign, not only over what is called the life or area of "faith" or "religion", but over all. We live in an age in America where Christ may be Lord over one's private life but, NOT in the public square! We not only may not privatize Christ the Lord, he cannot be privatized. The minute we try to privatize Christ the Lord in the public square, we, of course, legitimize ourselves as lord in the public square. In no area of life do we live in a vacuum. We either see Christ as Lord or we see ourselves as lords.

The Bible is profoundly jealous of the Lordship of Christ. Paul's writings are just simply full of the title of Lord for Jesus. The apostle Paul after his conversion simply did not know how to write without using that title for Jesus. His conversion brought him from the realm of his own lordship to the Lordship of Christ his Savior.

How common it is for us to hear preachers at national functions pray, but so pray as to carefully avoid the name of Jesus Christ. Yet it is also that very name without which a prayer is never heard by God the Lord. How shameful and disgraceful it is when even ministers can pronounce every name, but not the name "Lord Jesus Christ"! A world without the Lord Jesus Christ is a hell-bound world.

In the N.T., Peter's primary confession of faith is, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matt. 16:16) In this primary confession of faith, Peter is very careful to identify the Son of the living God rightly as the Christ. Our Catechism in Q31 then rightly points out that the title "Christ" means "our chief Prophet and Teacher, our only High Priest, and our eternal KING".

Jesus is Our Lord

The confession in the Apostles Creed of Christ as "our Lord" is, however, not merely a corporate confession that is made by everybody in the church. It is also a personal confession of faith that you and I as Christians make. Jesus is my Lord. He is Lord of the universe but He is also my personal Lord.

Jesus Christ is the one to whom I owe my submission in ALL of my life. The "our Lord" means Christ is Lord of all who are in the body of Christ by true faith. All those who have Christ as Savior also have him as Lord. If he is not the Lord of your life, he is not your Savior. Perhaps this is something that has to be emphasized anew in our day. Often too many church members believe Jesus is their Savior when their lives do not manifest that they are saved from their sins.

How is it manifested if Christ is your Savior and Lord? Q34 in our Catechism is correct when it says that "with his precious blood he has redeemed us, body and soul, from sin and from all the power of the devil, to be his own."

Jesus came not only to show us we are sinners, but to redeem us from our sins. He has redeemed us unto Himself as our Lord. By saving us from our sins he brings us personally under his power, direction, and authority. Being saved from our sins we are now owned by Christ. That is what Lord ultimately means. We no longer belong to ourselves. We belong to Christ.

That has enormous implications. We are now subject to his bidding. We take our orders from him. What he says we are obligated to do, and we must do it without argument, dispute, or negotiation. There are two decisive words by which Jesus identifies us as his disciples when he says "follow me", cf. Matt. 8:22; 9:9; Mk. 2:14, 34; Lk. 18:22, etc. Someone said, "we are only followers of Christ when in fact we follow Christ". How true. We Christians are a people whose deeds must match our words. In Lk. 6:46, Jesus asks us a very poignant question which we must give answer to when he asks, "And why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" We need to give that serious thought also as Reformed Christians. You call Christ your Lord. Good. Then let your life match your words or we are hypocrites. Os Guiness in a scintillating book called "The Call," says "We have shouted the name of Christ and enacted the service of Molech." How easily that can happen. Brothers and sisters, this ought never to be said of us.

It is our responsibility to bring others to Christianity. If we would bring others to Christianity we must first be Christians ourselves. We as Christians in the church, must make our message to the world credible by living lives which manifest to all that it is Christ who is our Lord. Not to live under the Lordship of Christ is to make our message lose its credibility.

It is said of Arthur Burns, a Jew and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and counselor to Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan, that he began attending a White House prayer group in the 1970's. One week he began attending the prayer group and he prayed, "Lord, I pray bring Jews to Jesus Christ. I pray bring Muslims to Jesus Christ. I pray bring Christians to Jesus Christ. Amen." Perhaps he, a Jew, saw something we sometimes miss seeing.

Christ has given us a very clear word on how we are to live under his Lordship. He has given us the Scriptures. He has given us his moral law summarized in the Ten Commandments. The Bible is so very clear in labeling for us those things which if we "do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (Gal. 6:21) Check for yourself what those things are in vss. 19-21. Poisons are to have clear labels on them. Christ has clearly labeled the poisons for our souls. We ignore them to our eternal peril. Christ has also clearly labeled for us the "fruit of the Spirit" as in Gal. 6:22-23.

Our culture is given to living by science. But there is one question science cannot answer and it is the most important question of life. "What shall I do and how shall I live?" Christ our Lord answers that. C. S. Lewis said "there are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God ‘thy will be done' and those to whom God says, ‘thy will be done'. That is the difference between heaven and hell."

Jesus as our Lord said, "Follow me." May we not live before the audience of many but before the audience of One-the audience of the One who said "Follow me" and that One is Christ "Our Lord".