Take Care Of Your Health

Temple Baptist Church - 2-3-2013
1 Timothy 5:23

Introduction:

A. While giving instruction to young Timothy concerning the proper way to conduct the local church, Paul gives him admonition not to neglect his body and general health while laboring for the Lord. While we need to “keep the main thing the main thing,” we also must not neglect to properly maintain balance.

B. In the realm of physical health, I guess you can fast too much as well as feast too much. Your body, like an automobile, must have fuel to run on. Paul elaborates upon one of the qualifications of a bishop or pastor: “not given to wine.” He instructs Timothy to “use” (not abuse) a little wine for health’s sake.

C. Paul was not speaking of fermented wine for obvious scriptural reasons. Many preachers allow for some alcohol consumption as long as one does not become intoxicated. I am not going to preach on alcoholic consumption tonight but will give a general reference to why Christians are not to use it in any form.

1. Wine is a mocker and makes you do things that you would not normally do.

2. Wine is not to be even looked at when it ferments or gives its color because of its beauty.

3. Wine is used as a means of taking advantage of people, especially women.

4. God pronounces a woe upon those who give strong drink to their neighbor.

D. Wine, or the “blood of the grape,” is good for the body. Until recently, doctors said it was good for the body and general health for one to drink alcoholic wine in moderation. Recently, they have changed that, praise the Lord, by declaring the alcoholic wine detrimental to one’s health and saying that grape juice was better for you.

E. Our general health is important to both our personal welfare and the work of the Lord. When sick, you cannot work or do the things that you like or need to do; you cannot effectively work in the Lord’s vineyard when your health will not allow you to do so.

3 John 2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

F. How to take care of yourself.

1. Temperance is part of the fruit of the Spirit - Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, (23) Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

2. Temperance is to be added to your faith - 2 Peter 1:5-6 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; (6) And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

3. Temperance brings eternal reward - 1 Corinthians 9:25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

1. Temperate in diet – Genesis 9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. (I am not on a “Halleluiah Diet!” People go one every kind of diet you can think of and the majority of them are not healthy. If you lose weight on one of the stringent, odd-ball diets, you will more than likely gain every pound back with interest when you get off of it.)

1 Timothy 4:3-4 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. (4) For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: ( Eating right things in right amounts helps to maintain good health. A few people do not eat enough or the right things which causes health problem but, for the most part, the opposite is the problem of most. My mother used to say, “Some people dig their graves with their teeth.”)

2. Temperate in labor – Exodus 31:15 Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. (God commanded man to work 6 days, not 7. Man was never intended to work all of the time. Work is a good thing; work is an essential thing; work is a commanded thing; but you can work too much. Many work to the neglecting of their family; others work to the neglecting of their Lord; others to the neglecting of their church and its work. All work and no play is not the way to go. Learn to have a good time and take a trip or vacation occasionally.)

3. Temperate in exercise – 1 Timothy 4:8 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. (Exercise profits but is not to be our main thrust in life. Some people are exercising crazy. I believe in physical fitness if done in a right manner. I still reap the benefit of running that I did in my younger years but also am reaping bad feet and knees from it. Bodily exercise profiteth little but it does profit! Young people, take care of your bodies for they will have to carry you a long way for a long time.)

4. Temperate in rest – Mark 6:31 And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. (People differ in the amount of rest that their bodies and minds require. I read once that the average person needs 8 hours of rest for their body and only about 4 for their minds. People differ here. I worked for years on an average of 6-6 ½ hours of sleep for years. I now require a little more. My next door neighbor in Kentucky was 96 years old and went to bed at sundown and slept until late morning. How to you know when you have had enough rest? When you wake up refreshed and can function the entire day, you have had enough rest. When you begin to toss and turn in the bed as a door turns upon its hinges, you are probably just too lazy to get up. J)

5. Don’t be too serious - Proverbs 17:22 says, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” (I certainly believe that we are not to go to either extreme: foolish jesting or never cracking a smile. It takes more muscles to frown than to smile. I believe that our Lord was a man of laughter! Be serious but also temper that seriousness with a merry heart which produces a cheerful countenance. A smile can be contagious. It is a medical fact that people who laughs live longer. Learn to smile and laugh a little. It is contagious!)