These verses in the letter to a lovely young man called Timothy are based around the idea that Tim is in leadership and he has come up against some opposition. The guy who is writing to him is called Paul, he refers to Tim as a 'true son', so we can guess that Paul was getting on a bit and we know that he has had a lot of experience when it comes to dealing with people who are against him, in fact in Paul's earlier life he was known as the bad guy, the one causing trouble for the Christian's, his story is in Acts chapter 9.
So back to tonight's theme, the idea of being 'well trained'. Let have a look at these two verses again.
1 Tim 4v7-8 reads something like this:
Stay clear of silly stories that get dressed up as religion. Exercise daily in God—no spiritual flabbiness, please! Workouts in the gym are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever. (The Message)
I think that the perspective the Message puts on these verses helps us to understand a little bit more, but there are still some things I'm not too happy about. The German version of this uses the word TWADDLE to describe the silly stories. I think twaddle is a much better word, 'avoid the twaddle that goes around'. We can pretty much see when some one is talking utter rubbish, or lying, or making stuff up. You just have to use your head, or someone else's head. You, like me, might be really gullible, you'd fall for anything. If the people around you are constantly trying to trick you they probably aren't very good friends, and it might be a good idea to start avoiding them.
You might be sitting there thinking, Karen that is so easy for you to say! What do I do? How do I do that? I think we all have to make mistakes. Like the first time you are told they've removed gullible from the dictionary and replaced it with a picture of you! We need to quickly learn what is right and what is wrong.
This is where the training part comes in, the second part of verse 7 says
“rather train yourself to be godly”
again, I don't think this is really what Paul meant. Like the athletes who have trained to take part in the Olympics, they did not do their training alone. Here I think 'train yourself' does not mean that we should discard everyone else and be alone, I think our training might look something like this clip from Cars (from 40mins33sec – 43:40).
In this clip we've seen the main character Lightning McQueen taking on a challenge set by Doc Hudson. Later on Doc gives some advice on how to make the corner “if you're going hard enough left, you'll find yourself turning right” We see Lightning test out this advice while he's still in Radiator Springs, and then this happens (clip 1hr37mins – 1:38)
Lightning has learnt so much more than how to drift on dirt, he went from being a one man team to team player in the space of a week. One of the best things about Doc's coaching was that it was in context, it was relevant to Lightning's life.
When I look back at my life I can see some key coaching moments where people and situations have helped my Christian life in leaps and bounds. One of those moments was when I was with a couple friends called Jude and Jeff, sitting in the car outside another friends house and Jeff just started praying out loud. Sadly this was a bit of a revelation to me, and praying had come out of church and the bedtime routine and sprung into life. I don't remember at all what Jeff said, but it was a definite coaching moment.
We all need these kinds of people in our lives. The ones who coach us, encourage us and help us to be more like Jesus. We cannot constantly be by ourselves all the time and expect to be well trained and more godly. This is something we can do daily, we can be surrounded by people who are godly, and it's not necessarily older people who are more godly. So think for a second who are the coaches in your life? Who are the people which give you advice and encourage you, this might be in something formal like mentoring, or something less formal, like a Christian teacher at school, a youth worker, or your Christian friends. They don't have to know they are coaching you, but you might take their advice a little more seriously than other's.
Also we have someone who has been with us from day one. Our own personal trainer who knows what is good for us, what will keep us trim and which parts of our spiritual lives are flabby! This is the Holy Spirit. If you've never heard of the Holy Spirit before that's fine, he/she/it is what we know as one of the three with God and Jesus. It has been around since the beginning of time, and during the Old Testament the Holy Spirit helped a select few people to be better. When Jesus left earth, the Holy Spirit became available to all of us, even here and now. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to train us, there is absolutely no point in having a personal trainer and ignoring the advice they give or trying to make our own way through all the equipment in the gym. This personal trainer is with us wherever we go and what ever situation we are in. However it does take a while to get into a way of thinking like an athlete does. You have to want to be trained, making alive decisions about your life (picture of fishes going against the flow), not just going with the flow. But without the Holy Spirit we run the risk of running a pointless race.
So what do we train in? I know that naturally I am not a musician, it would take a lot of time an effort for me to play an instrument, but naturally I'm quite good with words, and speaking in public. I know that these are the things that I need to train in to become better, taking on challenges and broadening my skills in talking, like I'm doing now. What are you naturally good at? Are you good at sports, or music, or drawing? Where does your talent lie? There is a video clip of Tiger Woods playing golf at aged 2, he continued to train at age 8 he was winning amateur tournaments, and at 21 he was world no 1! That's a pretty extreme example. But do you catch my drift? When we are all naturally talented at something, we can train in that and be doing it for God all the time. That doesn't mean you have to work for church when you grow up, but you can with the Holy Spirit's help, work every thing you do for God. Please believe people when they tell you that you are good at something. Let's be encouraging each other this week in the good things.
TIM AND VERITY STORY
Let's head back to the passage for a minute, we've talked about avoiding the old wives' tales and myths, but what stories can we believe and what is the measuring stick for them? It's something that we all own, but rarely use, it's a gift that we have been given which sits on the shelf at home. It is of course the bible. It's a shame that we have all the resources in the world of the word of God, yet we read those rather than the actual Bible. It has some really good things which can inform us on life,
how about Proverbs 16: 18 Pride will destroy a man, a proud attitude leads to ruin.
or
1 Samuel 4:18 When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backwards on his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. Don't lean back on your chair!
Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart
Pretty much the word of God is very important, but we tend to ignore it thinking that the stories are old and irrelevant. If we continue to do this, we will have nothing to stand with when we come up against the old wives tales and myths.
So how do we get the word of God in to our lives more than it is at this exact moment? A fun thing about the bible is that it has been around for years and people are always writing songs about it, so even before you know the bible, you might know some of the songs. FIND SONGS AND VERSES TO MATCH. Then you just have to add the reference at the end...
If you learn easier with pictures, there are some really good videos and story books which can help. Make sure though, that you always go back to the bible to check your facts.
But there is no one way to get the Bible into your head and etched on to your heart. We all have our own ways. You might be a morning person, up at the first sign of sunshine reading your bible and praising God for all the glories of creation. You might hit your peak around midday, so take a bible into school and have a read over lunch time. Or you might be a night owl, and reading the bible before you sleep is the only way to get it in to your brain. Ask the leaders in your group, or your youth leader what they do to get the bible into their lives. They will be able to give you some pointers. But again don't worry if you are not a bible scholar, or if it takes a while for you to get going. God made you, he knows all about you and knows the plans he has for you.
These verses finish by saying about the promise godly training has for the present and the future, however you might not get to the future if you don't do the thing which is of some value, and that's the physical training. Now I am definitely not the fittest person in this room, and I'm not about to find out how unfit I really am, but there were times in the bible where physical training was key to the continuation of the story. If you think of all the things Joseph went through to become the Pharaoh's right hand man. He wasn't the fittest amongst his brothers, but after they chucked him in a pit, you can imagine he'd wished he'd done a bit more training. Then once he's in Egypt, he finds himself in a situation where he has to literally run away. If he wasn't physical fit he wouldn't have been able to run away, and instead of being accused of adultery with Potiphar's wife he might have been caught in the action, and killed. End of story!
Another fine example of physical training is the disciples and early Christians, they wondered from place to place, granted that they did walk every where anyway, but if they hadn't have then the story of Jesus may never have spread.
Today our physical training is of some value, we need to be fit to run away from situations of temptation, or to stand and fight for what is right. I think Paul's warning us against vanity, if you spend all your days on yourself, how are you helping other people? If we are lazy in our physical lives, how will that reflect on our spiritual lives? You don't have to be an Olympian, but you do need to be able to race.
So lets start the training, keep going with the training, allowing others to coach us, and trying out the things which we are challenged about. Verses 9-12 say this “You can count on this. Take it to heart. This is why we've thrown ourselves into this venture so totally. We're banking on the living God, Saviour of all men and women, especially believers. Get the word out. Teach all these things. And don't let anyone put you down because you're young. Teach believers with your life: by word, by love, by faith, by integrity”. Having the bible and the Holy Spirit to be part of our lives so that our spiritual training stays on track.
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