Please remain standing for the reading of God's word. Our Old Testament lesson comes from the prophet Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter nine. Jeremiah nine, we'll just read two verses, verses 23 and 24. Pay careful attention to the reading of this prophecy. Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, nor let the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches. But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these I delight, says the Lord. This is the word of our God. We'll turn now to our New Testament lesson and sermon text, which likewise speaks of the comparative value of riches and a knowledge of God. The primary text we'll look at are verses eight and nine, but for the sake of context, we'll begin in verse six. 1 Timothy 4, verse six. If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ. nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed, but reject profane and old wives' fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance. For to this end, we both labor. and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God who is the savior of all men, especially of those who believe. These things command and teach. May the Lord bless the reading and proclamation of his inspired, inerrant, and infallible word. Amen. You may be seated. As a college student, I did not take finances very seriously, but as a young husband and then father, I started to take them more seriously. And I remember the first time really getting to grips with personal finance, when I realized that my spending choices were not just line items on a budget, but they were actually readings on a spiritual barometer. My spending reflected my priorities, and my priorities reflected my values, because where a man's treasure is, there his heart will be also. And what is true of money is also true of time, energy, and especially in our distracted age, our attention, these finite resources. What we choose to focus on reflects what we believe is valuable and important. So the key question for us tonight is how do you know what is worth your time, your money, your attention? By what standard do you decide? Every year there's thousands of new books published. We have only so much time, which ones do we read? probably painfully aware of how finite money is. It only goes so far. What are you going to use it to spend on? And with your iPhone having constant notifications, scroll through perhaps social media, you have all sorts of things vying for your attention. What are you going to focus on to the exclusion of other things? That brings us to the third of Paul's five faithful sayings, recorded in verse eight. Bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things. Congregation, you should prioritize godliness over everything else, including bodily exercise because godliness is of chief value. Our approach this evening is going to be to use the Puritan method of looking at the text, unpacking the doctrine, answering objections, and then applying the uses of the text practically to our lives. Let's begin with the text of scripture. Look again at verse nine. Verse nine says, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. So the five times the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to use this phrase, twice he adds, and worthy of all acceptance. He did that back in 1 Timothy 1.15, chief of sinners passage, and he does it again here in 1 Timothy 4.9. Not just a faithful saying, but worthy of all acceptance. And I want us to explore this saying with five questions. Anytime you read a passage of scripture, the best way to get to the heart of the meaning is to interrogate the text, to ask questions. First, which of the surrounding verses records the faithful saying? Is it verse 8? Or is it verse 10? When it says, this is a faithful saying, is it talking about what's coming before or what's coming after? So far in our studies, it's followed that phrase. Here it could go either way. It could be verse 8. It could be verse 10. Now, I'm convinced we get to the same place theologically in the end, but grammatically and stylistically, it makes most sense to see the faithful saying as coming before in verse 8. gives us a reason for Paul's exhortations to a faithful ministry in verses six to seven. He's encouraging Timothy to instruct, to remember, to reject, to be faithful, and then he gives the reason in verse eight. Four, bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of this life of the life that now is and of that which is to come, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. And then he goes on in verse 10 to give additional reasons why this is the case. So verse 10 is connected to the rest, but I'm gonna take verse eight as recording the faithful saying of verse nine. Now what does this particular faithful saying mean? Well if you look at it in verse eight, It's giving us a comparison, a contrast concerning the relative value of bodily exercise and godliness. And that word bodily exercise, it's the two words from which we get the words somatic and gymnasium. So you're using your body, and what do you do in a gym? You work out. And that's really the root idea. This is bodily exercise. It's contrasting the value of that with godliness. There's two things we can say about this faithful saying. One, it's teaching that bodily exercise is of partial and temporal value. Now this would have been against what some people in Paul's day were saying. The Judaizers and some of those Jews who'd imbibed Gnostic ideas, they thought of the body, in some cases, as being worse or being bad. in contrast to the soul. And so in verses one to five, Paul is talking about those who forbid to marry, who abstain from foods, and against all of that, Paul actually says that no, bodily exercise does profit. Exercising physically is a good thing. It has partial and temporal value. And that's true as far as it goes, but Paul is equally adamant to say it doesn't go far enough. It doesn't go far enough. Second thing it teaches, and that is that godliness is of unlimited and lasting value. Unlimited and lasting value. Godliness is unlimited or universal in the sense that it says profitable for all things. Not just profitable implied for some things, but profitable for all things. There's no limit placed upon the value of godliness. And not only that, but it is lasting, or it is eternal. It says, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. So not just temporal. The life that now is. So it is that. But also eternal, that which is to come. And here, just as a side note, Paul often will contrast this age and the age to come. This world, this earth, and our heavenly homeland above. And that contrast is back of this one. Whereas bodily exercise is a partial, limited value, he says there's no limit that I can put on godliness, and it lasts forever. Now what is godliness? What is godliness? Matthew Henry says it is practical religion. Not just theoretical religion, but practical religion. It's truth that comes out at your fingertips. It's truth where the rubber meets the road. how you live life. It means to become more like God, more God-like, which means more Christ-like, more like Christ. Godliness is living to God through Christ. It's drawing near to the Lord, or to use the language of Genesis 6, it's walking with God. Holy conduct, holy communion. It's experiencing and enjoying God's company. And as you draw near to the Lord and you spend time in His presence, you're actually becoming more like Him. You reflect His image with greater clarity. That's what godliness is. And if this godliness is profitable for all things, and if it's profitable not just for this life, but that which is to come, if it has, according to the Apostle Paul, an unlimited and lasting value, then the key question for us is how do we get that kind of godliness? How do we obtain it? How do we pursue it? Well, positively, if you look back at verse six, here's what Paul told Timothy. He said, if you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed. It goes on in verse seven to speak of exercise yourself toward Godliness. Really what Paul is saying, if you want godliness, if you want to be more like God, more God-like, more Christ-like, more like Christ, then you need to remember the old paths, the truths of the Bible, and put other people in remembrance of those truths. And then you need to work it out. Exercise yourself toward godliness. Here he's using a metaphor, whereas you're not working out in a physical sense, but spiritually speaking, you are working out your own salvation with fear and trembling. You are exercising yourself toward godliness, with labor, with intention, with desire, earnestly desiring Christ. But then negatively, he says, here's how you pursue godliness, he says, but reject profane and old wives' fables. Again, this is against the Judaizers. So, rejecting these things, but then straining and exercising yourself, remembering these truths, and pressing toward the mark. Fifth and final question, and that is, why should I live this way? You're telling me that godliness is worth pursuing, but Most people don't do that. Why should I live this way? Look at verse 10. It says, for to this end we both labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe. Congregation, if you want motivation to live for God's glory, to become more Christ-like, then you need to root that in God himself. Trust that God, who is the creator and the redeemer, will keep his promise, both in this life and in that which is to come. That's the text. It's this comparison, this contrast between the relative value of bodily exercise and godliness, of unlimited and lasting value. That's the text. I'm gonna speak for a moment to the doctrine that we can draw from this passage. To put it in one sentence, it's this. You should prioritize godliness over everything else, including bodily exercise, because godliness is of chief value. top of the hierarchy of things you could be pursuing. Now, as I say that, I wanna clarify, I'm not saying that physical fitness is unimportant or useless. No, Paul said, whatever its limitations, bodily exercise profits. It profits, and yet, it profits a little. What I am saying is that godliness is more valuable than physical fitness. Grace is not against nature, but grace does perfect nature because it's higher than nature. Bodily exercise profits, it does, a little, but godliness is profitable for all things. Now this faithful saying is rooted in both creation and in redemption. According to creation, heaven excels earth and the soul excels the body. The lower serves the higher, the lesser serves the greater. Just think about creation, you have rocks, that are beneath plants. Plants are beneath animals. Animals are beneath man. And man, at least initially, is beneath the angels. He was made a little lower than the angels and crowned with glory and honor. Now in Christ, he has been raised higher than the angels. But even within man, we have this hierarchy where the body serves and is animated by the soul. Even so. Godliness is profitable for all things. But also we can think of this in terms of redemption. In terms of redemption, grace excels race, and the spiritual excels the natural. This is true even in the consummation. When we live, body and soul, in the new heavens and the new earth. In that day, heaven and earth will be reunited in a new way. Our bodies and our souls will be reunited in a new way. But there still will be distinctions and even a layering of sorts. Again, grace perfects nature. Think of a passage like 1 Corinthians 15, which says the natural body gives way to the spiritual body, which is more real, not less. So we need to be careful here. Our bodies are valuable. The earth is valuable. God's going to redeem our bodies just as he's going to restore the earth. New heavens and a new earth. And yet we need to maintain a proper value of these things, that heaven excels the earth, the soul excels the body, grace excels race, the spiritual excels the natural. As Gerhardus Vos said, when it comes to communion with God, that is the paradise within the paradise of God. New heavens and new earth will be glorious. Our resurrected bodies, which will be flesh and blood, will be glorious. But even then, there is a paradise within the paradise of God, and that is our union and communion with Jesus Christ in grace, and then in glory. What does the hymn writer say? The bride eyes not her garments, but her dear bridegroom's face. I will not gaze at glory, but on my king of grace. Not at the crown he gifteth, but on his pierced hand. The lamb is all the glory in Emmanuel's land. And therefore, you need to prioritize godliness, God-likeness, Christ-likeness, drawing near to the Lord, living for his glory more than anything else that you do. It should encompass all that you do. It should frame all that you do. It should suffuse all that you do. It should be the aim, the objective, the goal to bring glory to God in everything you do as you order your loves to God as your chief end. As I say all this, you might consider objections to this teaching. I wanna answer a couple objections to what the Apostle Paul is stating here in 1 Timothy 4. First, you could conceivably say, what about the whole man? If God made us whole people, body and soul, is it really right to say that godliness is more important than bodily exercise, though both are important and good? Well, to that objection, I would simply point out, as Calvin said long ago, that although we are a whole person, the soul is still the principal part. The soul, when it comes to who you are, is most like God, who is simple, spiritual, and invisible. And that is why, while our body rests in the grave, the soul continues to praise God in heaven. Of course, there'll be a day when it's reunited with the body in a new way. We are in souled bodies, we are embodied souls, but the soul remains the principal part, as Calvin said. Another objection, probably more common, is when you say that godliness is more valuable than bodily exercise, it sounds like you're so heavenly minded, you're of no earthly good. You've got your head in the clouds. and you're not engaged with the issues of the day. Well, to that objection, on the one hand, I wanna lean into it and say there is a sense, there is an important sense in which Christianity is otherworldly. We don't have to be ashamed of that. We don't have to be embarrassed of that. We believe that when we die, we go to heaven. We believe that though we suffer all sorts of things in this veil of tears, though we are stripped of every possession that we own, though we seal our witness with blood, it's worth it. We have an otherworldly faith. We are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. We can stare down a firing squad because we know where we're going the moment we die. We're in the presence with the Lord. There is an otherworldly quality to Christianity. We don't have to be intimidated by the Karl Marx's of the world. We can embrace it and say absolutely. I'm bound for Jordan's further shore. I do have a heavenly mindedness and I'm not ashamed of it. That's what it means to be a Christian. Is to have your sights on heaven. But we can also say that most, the most heavenly minded people are actually the ones who do the most earthly good. And people say, well, you're so heavenly minded, you're of no earthly good. We need to reverse that and flip the script and say, actually, if you look at history, you look at the Bible, you consider the theology of it, it's the people who are the most heavenly minded that are actually of the most earthly good. To quote C.S. Lewis, aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you will get neither. Or even better, to quote Paul, Godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. Although the Christian life often entails suffering and persecution. Look at verse 10. He says that. We suffer reproach and we labor. It often involves suffering and persecution. The Christian life is still the only good life. It is the best life, even on this earth. All things being equal, Christians enjoy this world more than unbelievers because we can receive it as a good gift from a heavenly Father. We don't have to turn this world into a series of idols. We can actually enjoy the good things of this earth, and as Paul says earlier, we can even give thanks for them. It says, for every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. Christians enjoy the good life. We enjoy the best life. Often God even gives us as we pray in the Lord's Prayer, a competent portion of the good things of this life. Unlike the unbeliever, we know why we're here. We know where we're going. And therefore we are eminently and uniquely equipped to enjoy this life. As Petrus van Maastricht says, we have inchoate glory now, inaugurated glory now, and we will have consummate glory then. It's good to be a Christian today. It's good to be in the house of God today. It's the best way to live. And it only gets better and better and better for all eternity. It's great now to be a Christian. And oh, how much greater when Jesus comes and we behold him as he is. We look at the texts, unpack the doctrine, answered a couple objections. I wanna close with four practical applications of this truth. First, recalibrate and recalculate your standard of value. Recalibrate, recalculate your standard of value. Sometimes you need to think differently before you act differently. Sometimes the application is you need to change the way you think. You need to have the mind of Christ. You need to have your mind renewed. You need to have your mind impressed with the pattern of the Holy Scriptures and the wisdom of God. So take it to heart. Take it to mind. Bodily exercise prophets a little. but godliness is profitable for new, for all things. The new birth, being born again, born from above, means a new hierarchy of loves and loyalties. It means a new standard of profits and loss. This evening, congregation, do you have the mind of Christ? Is it, is your, Are your values recalibrated and recalculated according to the Bible? Do you have the perspective of Paul, who said, what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ? he'd reckoned them in his mind, loss for Christ. Yet indeed, I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own. which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, if by any means I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Paul was a man who studied at the foot of Gamaliel. He providentially was situated in a unique place with all the rabbinical knowledge of the fathers in his Jewish faith. He was a Roman citizen. He understood Hellenistic culture. He knew the poets of ancient Greece and Rome. He knew the Hebrew Bible inside and out. He had privilege. He had status. He had accessibility to powerful people. And he looks at all of that and he says, compared to Jesus, it's nothing. It's less than nothing. It's rubbish. The Greek there is very specific. It's a refuse pile. It is dung. It is not worth anything to me compared to my knowledge of Jesus. And Paul was a man who was willing to be scourged, who was willing to be beaten, who was willing to die, which means he really believed this. This isn't just poetry. It's not just rhetoric. This is his real confession of faith. So do you think that way? I challenge you to recalibrate and recalculate the way you think about these things. Second application, believe that godliness is worth it. Believe that godliness is worth it. You might wonder, especially younger people in this congregation, I remember being in this place of contemplating, is it really worth it to live this way? to give up certain things, to say no to certain things. As we said this morning, to stand out in an awkward way, as Noah did in his generation. Is it worth it? To quote Matthew Henry, will the prophet balance the loss? Will it be worth it at the end? On the basis of this text, we can clearly say it's worth it. Jesus is worth it because Jesus is worthy. Worthy is the lamb that was slain. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. Paul is underscoring his relative comparison of godliness over bodily exercise, and he's saying, believe me, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, this is pistos halagos. This is a faithful saying. It's worthy of everyone's acceptance. The commentator continues, all our labors and losses in the service of God and the work of religion will be abundantly recompensed, so that though we lose for Christ, we shall not lose by him. That's why the great missionary to Africa said, I never made a sacrifice. David Livingston did make sacrifices. He had many losses, but he said, in a sense, I never made a sacrifice because this was the best life. In losing all things for Christ, I have not lost by him. I have actually gained everything. Like the goal of physical fitness. Some of you know what it's like. You have a certain goal in mind. I want to be physically fit in this way. Learn to visualize the outcome. Scan the horizon line of history. When Christ comes again on the clouds of heaven and you need to believe it in your heart, in your soul, in your mind, it's worth it to live for God's glory. Third application. Reject an unhealthy preoccupation with health and fitness. And I'm not gonna take time to clarify again what I'm saying. You know that there is value in eating in a healthy way, of getting enough sleep, of exercising your body. But congregation, and you know yourself, is physical exercise, is health, is fitness, is it in the proper place or is it out of place in your life? Is it out of joint? Is it disproportionate? Do you seek it to the wrong degree? Or do you seek it for the wrong reasons? And here you simply have to be honest with yourself. When you pursue physical fitness, is it ultimately about God? You want to be a more fit vessel for His kingdom? A more excellent agent of His grace? Or is it really about you? Is it your own vanity, especially in the eyes of others? I want to have a certain degree of physical fitness because I will look a certain way in the eyes of the world. Again, know yourself and be honest with yourself. Are you guilty of an unhealthy preoccupation with health and fitness? Fourth, fourth application. Properly order your pursuits according to their relative value. In other words, having recalculated and recalibrated, put it into action. Put first things first and second things second. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. This means you should engage in bodily exercise. It's good stewardship of your temporal gifts and of the individual temple of the spirit, which is your body. It profits, it's true. But it profits only a little. Godliness, on the other hand, is profitable for all things. So pursue godliness above all. Putting first things first might be literal for you. It might be literal. Before you open the gym bag, you open your Bible. Before you go to the gym, you go to God in prayer. It might be literal. Now that's not a hard and fast rule because for some people bodily exercise gets their blood flowing and their brain firing so they can read the Bible and pray more fruitfully. But there should at least be a logical priority to the things of God in your life. that you're putting first things first, that even your bodily exercise should be done in dependence upon the spirit of God according to his word and for his glory. Again, we saw Paul model that earlier on in the chapter where he says, every creature of God is good and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving for it is sanctified by the word of God in prayer. We could apply that to a lot of things. He mentions marriage, he mentions food. We could also apply it to physical exercise. All sorts of things can be done by a Christian in an appropriate way for the glory of God. Whatever rigors you put your body through, how much more important the spiritual disciplines. I said I had four applications. I actually have a fifth and final application, that is, prioritize godliness the right way. This brings us back to the question, how do I pursue godliness? And I just wanna end on a eminently practical note, talking about the manner and the means of living a godly life. When it comes to the manner, one commentator says this, those who would be godly must exercise themselves unto godliness. It requires a constant exercise. Paul says, exercise yourself toward godliness. And here it might be helpful to draw an analogy between bodily exercise and exercising yourself in a spiritual manner. Is your walk with God regular? Just as you would have a regular exercise regimen, are you walking with God daily? Is there a routine where you meet with God, same time, same place? Is there, in an appropriate way, can we say, is your pursuit of God hard? Resistance training, no pain, no gain. Are you praying through the difficulties, even when it's difficult? Are you wrestling with God in prayer? Are you agonizing with God in intercession and in supplication? Are you laboring for holiness? Are you striving for holiness, without which no man will see the Lord? Is there this resistance training? Your pursuit of godliness should be appropriately exhilarating, euphoric. We could say supernatural endorphins, the adventure of faith. There's nothing more compelling than the pursuit of God and God's pursuit of us as we run to Christ. Like the Shulamite to the bridegroom, we sprint to him. We earnestly desire him. It's exhilarating. It's more invigorating than wine. There should be a cumulative effect. The effects become apparent over time. If you go to the gym and you work out every day at a certain time in a certain way, you will see the effects of that over time. Well, even so, if you are daily, regularly, consistently, passionately, expectantly coming to God and opening his word and praying and testifying of the truth, you will see the cumulative effects over time. as God works in you and through you to accomplish His purposes. That's the manner of this pursuit. Close with a discussion of means. How do you obtain godliness? Well, the best place to start are with the means of grace God has given us, the Word, sacraments, and prayer. I would also encourage you to think about your choice of reading and your choice of study. Again, we have so many things competing for our attention. Are we reading? Are we studying? Are we listening to the best things, starting with the Bible? Are we also taking advantage of the Westminster Confession and catechisms, the writings of the Puritans? Are we taking opportunity and advantage of those things that are going to nourish us in the faith? Above all, Remember that the key to godliness is God himself. You can't pursue godliness apart from pursuing God. You can't pursue Christlikeness apart from being pursued by Christ. So keep your eyes upon Jesus. Run, fight, lift, labor, watch, pray for Jesus' sake and in his name, amen.