A few years ago, we had a problem with a beaver on our road. You see, on this specific part of the road there is a small pond off to one side. After the snow melts in the spring, it will fill up and flow through a culvert underneath the road. However, that spring a beaver decided to block up the culvert and keep the water in the pond. I went down and checked the culvert every day. It started with a couple smaller sticks placed against the culvert end. Then the beaver would bring up some mud and spread it against those sticks. A day or two later and there were some more sticks against the culvert, and a couple smaller logs.
Eventually the beaver had built up such a dam blocking the culvert that the water rose up so high that the water covered the road itself. We tried taking a shovel to try to break apart the blockage, but the beaver had done such a good job we could only clear a small path for the water to escape. It was kind of pointless to try and keep shoveling it out, because each night the beaver would fix whatever we had cleared away. It was only when someone came out with a backhoe and dug everything out that the water went down and flowed through again.
And that is kind of what this verse is about today.
“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 Timothy 4:7,8
What Paul was teaching here is that it is more important to place your time making your faith stronger than building up your body. No matter how good of shape your body is in, eventually it will die, just like everyone else’s. Notice that he didn’t say that exercising your body is wrong, but that it doesn’t profit you like spiritual things, because spiritual things will last forever, and are therefore of far more importance.
We should be focused on the things of God daily, exercising our “spiritual muscles.” We can do this through prayer, fasting, studying the scriptures, and showing love to our neighbor. Each time you do something like this it is like lifting a spiritual weight that strengthens your spiritual muscles (which will last forever), building you up stronger.
We have an older fiberglass boat that needed some fixing a couple years ago. Well when you fix a crack or hole in fiberglass, you can buy a kit containing fiberglass cloth, a kind of thick, syrupy liquid called resin, and a small bottle of “hardener,” which when you mix with the resin, it will harden everything solid.
So what you do is after you have mixed the resin and the hardener together, you take a piece of fiberglass cloth and dip it into the mixture, and quickly lay it onto the crack or hole. Usually we do this several times, so that by the time we are finished, we have laid down 5 or 6 layers and we have a nice thick patch that hardens into place.
We could have tried to put a piece of duct tape over the crack, but that would not have been very productive, or “profitable,” because it would have just fallen off after a short while. We wanted to fix it so that it was fixed strong and permanently.
Every house has a foundation, whether it is good and solid or not. Jesus used this as an example to teach the difference between someone who does His will or not.
“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.” Matthew 7:24-27
In this parable, the man whose house had been built on the rock did not fall when the storm came. It was built strong, just like a Christian will be when they faithfully hear and do the Lord’s will. And those who build their house on the sand are those who do not do what they have heard from the scriptures.
Jesus is our foundation, He is the root of the Christian tree. When we build our lives around Him, we will be strong and unmovable.
“And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;” Ephesians 2:20
Exercise your spiritual muscles. Be strong in your faith!
In Christ,
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 