MINISTRY FITNESS

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on March 9, 2025 under 2024 |

Bethany Bible Church Sermon Message, preached March 9, 2025 from 1 Timothy 4:6-10

Theme: There are certain habits that make for a fit ministry in the service of Jesus Christ.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

Click HERE for the video archive of this sermon.

Click HERE for the audio version of this sermon.

The older I get, the more I appreciate good habits of physical health. I know, of course, that just ‘appreciating’ such habits isn’t quite enough. Those good habits will really only help me to the degree that I intentionally make them a part of my daily life; habits such as good rest, exercise, a healthy diet, staying away from junk foods, and getting out of doors. But I do appreciate the difference such habits make … and I am working to be more consistent in them.

But what about good habits for a healthy ministry? As important as physical health is, and as much as it shouldn’t be neglected, good spiritual habits for a healthy service to our Lord Jesus Christ are of an even greater and more eternal value. Are there such habits? What kind of a difference would it make to us as believers if we made them a part of our daily life? Shouldn’t we appreciate them even more and work more diligently to make them a part of our daily lives?

That was something that the apostle Paul was very concerned about. It’s hard to think of anyone whose ministry and service for the Lord Jesus was more healthy and robust than his. And it’s clear from reading about his life and ministry, and from thinking about the things he wrote in his letters, that he had put certain habits into practice in his life that sustained him in his remarkable adventures of ministry. And it’s these very kinds of habits that are the subject of our passage this morning.

Paul had been writing to his younger ministry colleague Timothy. Timothy had been given a difficult ministry assignment. He was the lead pastor of the church in the ancient city of Ephesus—a city that was given over to all kinds of paganistic religions, ungodly philosophies, and immoral practices. And among the many challenges that Timothy faced was the work of ensuring that the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ was carefully protected and maintained in the Ephesian church. Paul had urged Timothy repeatedly—in even the earliest parts of his letter—to diligently protect that precious gospel, and to make sure that no one in the church taught anything other than that which conformed to it. And so, Paul urged him to practice the kind of habits that would make for a good, healthy, effectual ministry in the service of the Lord Jesus.

In 1 Timothy 4:6-10, he told him,

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 (1 Timothy 4:6-10).

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; if I can, I want to be physically healthy and active all my life. But even more than that, I want to have a healthy ministry of service to the Lord Jesus for all of the days that the Lord gives me—a ministry that truly pleases Him, and that is effective in His cause. And I believe that you also want our church, and everyone who serves in it, to have a healthy ministry as we proclaim that precious message to the world around us. And so we need to pay careful attention to the things Paul said to Timothy in this morning’s passage. In it, we see that there are certain habits that make for a fit ministry in the service of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We need to learn what these habits are, appreciate them, and find ways—with God’s help—to put them into regular practice in our own individual lives. In the long term, they will make a tremendous difference in our service to our Savior.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; someone might think to themselves, “Talking about good habits for a healthy ministry sounds like an interesting subject. But aren’t these words that are written by the apostle to a pastor? I’m definitely not a pastor. What do they have to do with me?”

Well; there’s something very important to notice in how the apostle Paul addressed Timothy in speaking these words of instruction to him. If you look closely at verse 6, you’ll see that he tells Timothy that these things would make him “a good minister of Jesus Christ”. That word minister is one that we’ve already considered in our study of 1 Timothy. In the original language, it’s the word diakonos—from which we get the word “deacon”. That’s the name of one of the two officially recognized leadership roles in a biblical church family. As we saw some time back in our study of 1 Timothy, a ‘deacon’ is someone who has been officially recognized by the church family—and formally appointed by the elders of the church—to serve in the leadership role of specific ministries within the church’s ministry.

But Paul was not telling Timothy to be a good ‘deacon’ in the sense of being in that official church office of leadership. Paul was using the word in the more general sense of any believer in the church family who renders service in Jesus’ name and for the advancement of His cause. And in that sense, dear brothers and sisters, there’s not a single believer in our church who is not called—in some way—to be a ‘minister’.

When it comes to those of us who have placed our trust in Jesus and who have been saved by faith in His blood, the Holy Spirit has given each of us a place of service in His church body. We all have been called—in some way—into ministry in Jesus’ name. Some of us have unique gifts in teaching; others have unique gifts in hands-on service; some of us have unique gifts in bringing comfort to others in times of need; some of us have unique gifts of spiritual discernment; some of us have unique gifts for an ‘up-front’ kind of ministry, some of us have unique gifts for a ‘behind-the-scene’ type of ministry, some of us have unique gifts for sharing the gospel, some of us have unique gifts for building up the church family. But all of us have a place of ministry in the body of Christ, and all of us have work to do in His service. And so, the good habits of a fit ministry that we find in this morning’s passage absolutely have something to do with you—whether you are an official ‘deacon’, or an ‘elder’, or a believing member of the congregation at large.

So; let’s all pay careful attention to the things Paul tells us about the habits that make for a fit ministry in our Lord’s service … because all of us are called, in some way, to be good ministers.

* * * * * * * * *

With that in mind then, let’s begin by first noticing what the apostle Paul had to say about …

1. THE WORK OF A FIT MINISTRY.

In verse 6, he told Timothy, “If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ …” And so, in Timothy’s case, being ‘a good minister’ and having a good ministry involved reminding the people he served of certain things. What were those things?

Well; it’s important to remember that the theme of Paul’s letter to Timothy was to protect the integrity of the preaching of the gospel of Jesus. He was to make sure that the soul-saving, life-transforming message of the gospel of Jesus Christ was carefully taught as it’s declared to us in the word of God; and that nothing else was preached or taught other than what faithfully conformed to that message. And as we’ve seen in our study of this letter, Paul spent a good deal of time instructing Timothy on how the life and conduct of the church family needed to be in keeping with that message. Beginning in Chapter 2 and going all the way through Chapter 3, he taught Timothy such things as how the men needed to lift up holy hands in prayer in the church—praying for kings and for those in authority, so that the gospel can freely spread. He also taught that the women of the church likewise needed to pray—conducting themselves in prayer in a manner that was in keeping with the message of the gospel. He taught that qualified elders needed to be appointed in the church who oversaw the church—godly men who could preach, teach, and protect that precious gospel. And he taught that qualified deacons and deaconesses also needed to be appointed in the church who would lead in various areas of ministry that would advance that gospel. It’s all about the church’s ministry of living for, and protecting, and rejoicing in, and faithfully proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And notice especially what Paul then told Timothy in 4:1-5. He made it clear to Timothy that the care and nurture of the church family in the gospel was a crucial matter when he wrote;

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 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 (4:1-5).

He warned Timothy that, in times to come, those who once professed a faith in Jesus would wander from the truth of the gospel. He warned that they would fall away and pay attention instead to diabolical lies from the devil. And what’s more, he warned that false teachers would arise who would seek to misuse the word of God, and persuade people that they can be made righteous in the sight of God through man-made religious rules and regulations. All of this was an attack upon the integrity of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so, Paul urged Timothy to ‘instruct’ the church family on these things. It’s interesting that the word he used for ‘instruct’ had a particular significance. It meant to ‘lay’ these things ‘down’ before the people of God and to ‘recommend’ them to their attention—not in a harsh manner, but through the gentle persuasion of sound, logical, biblical teaching—so that they themselves would be encouraged to search the scriptures and see that these things are so.

And dear brothers and sisters; that’s what would make you and I ‘good ministers’ of the Lord Jesus Christ in the area of service that He has given each of us. Our service to the Lord proves to be a ‘fit ministry’—a truly healthy one—when we make sure that ‘the main thing’ always remains ‘the main thing’. We must always keep our focus on the life-transforming message of the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and ‘lay it down’ to the attention and instruction of one another that we must keep ourselves in a close and deep relationship of love with Jesus by faith.

So; that’s what Paul told Timothy that a fit ministry looks like. And one of the wonderful things about our dear elder brother Paul is that he didn’t just say to do something. He also said what needed to be done in order to accomplish it. And so, as we read on, we see that he lays out …

2. THE HABITS OF MINISTRY FITNESS.

Now; as we all know, good physical fitness depends on the right diet. And so, Paul urged Timothy to make sure he had good ‘dietary’ habits for ministry—that is, that he was careful to take the right things into himself. In verse 6, he urged him to be a ‘good minister’ of the Lord, “nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed …”

The word that Paul used for being ‘nourished’ means more than simply being conscious of one’s intake. It meant the whole idea of being ‘brought up’ and ‘raised’ in a thing. And Paul mentioned two main categories of the good, nourishing things that Timothy had been brought up on. The first is “the words of faith”; and that has to do with the word of God in written form—the Scriptures. The second is “good doctrine”; and that has to do with the orderly, systematic, theological teaching that is derived from the Scriptures and applied to daily life.

These are things that Timothy, in actual fact, had been ‘brought up in’. In his second letter to Timothy, Paul mentioned that Timothy had a believing mother and a believing grandmother. They modeled the faith to Timothy from his earliest years. And as Paul reminded him in the very important words of 2 Timothy 3:10-17;

But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra—what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:10-17).

When we consider that hard times are coming, it’s crucial that we have the kind of good spiritual diet that will lead to a healthy and fit ministry. And you can’t have a better menu of items to feed on than what we find in those words.

Dear brothers and sisters, let me ask you: Are you reading from the Bible regularly? Are you in the habit of feeding on God’s word daily? And more, are you taking the time to learn the doctrines of the faith as they’re taught in the Bible? You absolutely cannot have a truly ‘fit’ ministry in the service of the Lord unless you’re allowing yourself to be well-nourished in biblical truth. And no one can force-feed these things to you. You must make it your own determination to benourished in them.

And it’s not enough that we take in good nourishment. As we all know, physical fitness comes not only from taking good things in, but also from keeping bad things out. And so, in verse 7, Paul went on to tell Timothy, “But reject profane and old wives’ fables …”

The word “profane” refers to that which is secular and worldly and that has nothing to do with true godliness. It’s always harmful to the spiritual health of a church’s ministry when it loses its focus on that which is truly edifying to the soul, and becomes distracted by an inordinate focus on mere ‘worldly’ and ‘secular’ concerns. But Paul also speaks of ‘old wives tales’. And while that might sound offensive to modern ears, what Paul is speaking of are the kind of silly myths and absurd fables that spring from human imagination. I think a good clue of what Paul meant is given in 2 Timothy 3:6-7, where he warned about false teachers who would come along and plague God’s people:

For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:6-7).

This speaks of the kind of silly, pseudo-spiritual, phony teaching that captures the attention of unwary people and draws them away from the truth. You might think of it as ‘spiritual junk food’; and Paul warns Timothy of the danger of it throughout his letters. He tells him in 2 Timothy 2:16, “But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness.” In Titus 1:14, he urges another pastor—Pastor Titus—to train the people in his church to be sound in the faith; “not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth.” And he very powerfully warned the Colossian believers in the church in the ancient city of Colossae;

Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God (Colossians 2:18-19).

Have you ever been in a bad habit of eating junk food … and then gotten yourself out of that bad habit for a good long stretch? You definitely feel better. And then, if you should ever go back and eat some of that same old junk food again after having stayed away from it for a while, you’re shocked by how awful it makes you feel. If you and I make sure that we’re well-nourished in the Scriptures and in the solid doctrines of the faith, we’ll soon lose our appetite for the spiritual ‘junk food’ of this world. We’ll grow to have an appetite only for the truth of God’s word and for that which edifies the soul. That’s what makes for a truly ‘fit’ ministry.

But there’s still more. Eating well is good. Staying away from junk food is good, too. But to truly be physically fit, you also need good exercise. And that’s what Paul went on to tell Timothy. He wrote in verses 7-8, “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.”

Paul acknowledged that physical exercise is good. We shouldn’t take him to be saying that such things aren’t important. They do have certain benefits. But the good we gain from physical exercise is only temporary, and isn’t nearly as important as the good we gain from being well-trained and well-exercised in godliness. Exercise in godliness not only benefits our lives in the present, but brings about great reward on the day when we finally stand before our Lord in glory.

So then; how do we ‘exercise’ ourselves in godliness? The Bible tells us at least three ways. First, we exercise ourselves in godliness in the area of daily life choices. Whenever we’re faced with something that God tells us not to do—something that we know from His word to be wrong, and when in reverence to Him, we intentionally choose instead to obey His commands and do what is right, we have just exercised ourselves in godliness. And each and every time we do that, we grow stronger in godliness and further strengthen our ‘godliness muscles’.

The writer of Hebrews wrote about this. He urged his readers to grow in their faith; telling them,

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil (Hebrews 5:12-14).

So there’s one way that we get good exercise in godliness: by discerning from God’s word what is right and what is wrong and by consistently making the choice to do what is right out of love and reverence to Him. Each time we do that, we grow stronger in our discernment.

Another way is by faithfully denying the demands of our fleshly nature. When we became saved, our spirit was completely renewed, and we now live a new life. But our outward body is not yet glorified. It’s still habituated to the sins that characterized our old life. Our whole lives long, we had lived by what our bodies told us to do; but now, we are to do so no longer. Paul wrote about this in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; and he put it into the same kind of language that spoke of how a world-class athlete disciplined his or her own body:

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).

So; there’s still another way that we get good exercise in godliness: by keeping in control of our fleshly desires and making our bodies the servant of our spiritual life in Christ—and by not allowing our spiritual life to become subservient to the desires of our bodies.

A third way is by making it a regular habit of evaluating those things in our life that tend to cause us to stumble and fall and by stripping those things away that are a hindrance to godly living and that distract us from Jesus’ lordship over our lives. The writer of Hebrews also used the analogy of an athlete, and in Hebrews 12:1-2 wrote;

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:1-2).

We usually know what that ‘sin’ is that so easily ‘ensnares us’ as an individual believer. And so also does the devil. The enemy of our souls knows how and when to take advantage of our particular weaknesses; and if we hold on to those things that easily trip us up, he will use them against us. So long as we carry such things around on ourselves, we cannot run faithfully for the Lord. We need to lay those things aside and strip ourselves of them—always keeping our eyes on Jesus as our goal. That’s yet another way that we can exercise ourselves in godliness.

So, dear brothers and sisters, good ministry fitness comes from taking in a good nourishing diet of God’s word and God’s truth regularly, staying away from the spiritual junk food of false doctrine and ungodly myths and fables, and keeping ourselves continually exercised in godliness.

Now; all of this is true and trustworthy. As Paul told Timothy in verse 9, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance.” Timothy could rest the effectiveness of his ministry confidently on it all, and faithfully give his life to declaring these things to those under his care. So can we.

And that leads us to one more thing; and that’s …

3. THE GOAL OF A FIT MINISTRY.

Why is laboring hard to have a truly ‘fit’ ministry important? What are we doing all of this for? Paul told Timothy in verse 10, “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.” It’s for the cause of the gospel that has been entrusted to us to declare to the world.

Paul says that this gospel—the good news of who Jesus is and what He has done on the cross to save us—is a message that’s for all the people of the world; because Jesus is the Savior of all men. That doesn’t mean that all people are saved. It simply means that, for all the people of this world, there is one Savior only—Jesus Christ. As it says in 1 Timothy 2:4-5, our God

desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time … (1 Timothy 2:4-6).

And it’s for those who hear that testimony and believe it—and for those alone—that He is “especially” the Savior. That soul-saving, life-transforming gospel of Jesus as the one and only Savior of all people—and the call for all people to believe and be saved by Him—is the message that has been entrusted to us as His church on this earth.

That’s why we must strive to have a truly ‘fit’ ministry.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; before we end our time, it would be good to hear one more word from the apostle Paul. A good ‘fitness program’ is usually endorsed by a trustworthy spokesman with a good testimonial. And the apostle Paul gives us his good testimonial in 2 Timothy 4:6-8.

He labored hard to keep spiritual fit for ministry to the Lord Jesus; and truly, no one was more fit and robust in his labors for the Lord Jesus than he was. What did he have to say at the end of his labors on this earth? He wrote to Timothy and said;

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing. (2 Timothy 4:6-8).

That’s his own endorsement of the spiritual habits that make for a fit ministry in the service of Jesus Christ. Let’s heed his good advice to Timothy!

AE

AE