Make War on Sin with Exercise

Father, be pleased to inspire fresh motivation to put our bodies to use in pursuit of Christ-honoring joy and ministry. To whatever degree necessary, reorient our vision to see our bodies as assets, not liabilities, in the fight against sin and in the call to minister Christ’s love to others. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.

The occasion of my coming is your plan for a sermon series on the seven deadly sins, titled “Feed the Spirit, Starve the Flesh.” Those seven deadly sins are pride, greed, envy, (sinful) anger, lust, gluttony, and sloth.

My credential for being here is that I wrote a book called A Little Theology of Exercise. Of the seven deadly sins, physical exercise would deal most directly with sloth, though related would be gluttony. And as I hope you’ll see, the body and its exercise might have a part to play in making war against them all.

Sloth and gluttony may be two of the harder ones to talk about because they are so acceptable in our day, and they are a deadly combination, both spiritually and physically. Now, more than 40 percent of Americans are considered obese. You might think it’s more difficult to find out what percent are lazy. However, one study reports that among adults under the age of 30, 43 percent self-identify as lazy!

My hope is that as we focus on physical exercise and implicitly on sloth, you’ll see patterns of a distinctly Christian approach to making war on all sin:

• The centrality of God’s word, with
• the accompanying power of his Spirit, and
• God’s call that we consciously ask for his help in prayer, and
• that we lean into the company of fellow believers,
• as we cultivate long-term habits (not quick fixes), and
• in them, pursue real joy in Christ daily.

There are bodily, not just spiritual, dimensions to all seven of the deadly sins, but some are more manifestly bodily than others. We feel them in our bodies, and they have various physical causes and associations and implications.

All that to say, the fight against sin and the fight for holiness and joy is a soul-and-body fight. We are soul-and-body creatures. God made us like that. The proper state of humanity is body and soul together, united as one. The pain of death is the temporary separation of body and soul, and the final state of redeemed humanity will be the glorious reunion of body and soul.

And the fight against sin in this life is a body-and-soul battle. Have you ever noticed that Romans 12:1–2 says, perhaps surprisingly,

to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Often Christians (understandably but not rightly) have focused on the soul and neglected the body. I’d like to help us think through the complex and glorious relationship between soul and body in these few minutes, and how the body can be an asset rather than a liability in the pursuit of Christian joy. And to make it tangible and concrete, we’ll focus on the opportunities related to bodily movement and exercise.

What Is Exercise?

Exercise, in some sense, is a new phenomenon in world history, depending on how you define it. I think of exercise as “voluntary physical activity undertaken for the sake of health and fitness” (Daniel Lieberman, Exercised, xii).

For most of history, most humans didn’t need exercise. They moved around and exerted their bodies in work and travel with normal, healthy human amounts of energy and exertion. But today, with our remarkable labor-saving devices and transportation, many of us need help getting normal human levels of activity. We need some exercise to offset our sedentary jobs and lives — maybe especially pastors and those of us in Christian ministry.

But I don’t find it very motivating to think of exercise as simply making up for what we’re missing. A far more inspiring angle is to realize the opportunity afforded us in moving our bodies and exerting energy in the ways God made them to work.

In the book When I Don’t Desire God, John Piper has a chapter called “How to Wield the World in the Fight for Joy.” There he wrestles with the relationship between physical causes and spiritual effects and, in particular, “how to use the world of physical sensation for spiritual purposes” (182).

By world, he means the sights and sounds of nature, human art and music, poetry and literature, and even the commonplace in our everyday lives. And one vital aspect of this “wielding the world” is the use of our own bodies:

The proper or improper use of our bodies can have a huge effect on the way we experience spiritual reality. . . . Proper eating and exercising and sleeping has a marked effect on the mind and its ability to process natural beauty and biblical truth. (178)

That’s relevant in Christian ministry. He says it has a “huge effect on the way we experience spiritual reality” and a “marked effect on the mind and its ability to process natural beauty and biblical truth.”

So, what are these “huge” and “marked” effects that would motivate a pastor like me to pursue physical exercise, not as an escape from Christian ministry, but as a cherished assistant in ministry, and even more than that, an aid in the Christian life?

I have one main text I want to take you to and offer a few observations before I share four motivations that pull me out of laziness and get me moving toward a modest pattern of physical exercise in my pastor’s life.

Creation and Consecration

Let’s look at 1 Timothy 4:1–5. Paul is here warning his protégé Timothy, and the Ephesian church that’s reading this letter over his shoulder, about a group of false teachers who (apparently under demonic influence) forbid marriage and outlaw certain foods. These false teachers are ascetics (that is, persons who practice severe self-denial). They disavow the God-given pleasures of good food and marriage. Paul counters with the truth about God’s creation and the call to Christian consecration.

So, 1 Timothy 4:1–5:

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

So, verse 3 says that these false teachers “forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods.” They are suspicious, like Satan, of the goodness of God in giving us physical, bodily pleasures — or suspicious of bodily appetites for sex and for certain foods. Paul’s response to the false teaching is a Christian doctrine of creation and the call to make life holy through specific moments of consecration.

God created food and marriage, and he means for those who believe and know the truth (Christians) to receive his good gifts with thanksgiving and enjoy him in them. As Creator, he gives generously. As creatures, we receive and enjoy the goodness of his gifts on the terms he gives them, and that honors him.

“What if you put your body to use in the pursuit of godliness?”

God means for us to enjoy his gifts (1) according to what he himself says about food and marriage (“by the word of God”) and (2) through our speaking back to him in light of his word (“prayer”). This prayer includes words of gratitude to him (“to be received with thanksgiving”), as well as asking that he sanctify our use of his gifts — that he would make the enjoyment of them holy, occasions of serving both physical and spiritual needs.

We consecrate our meals and our marriages to him so that he might use these common kindnesses beyond what good they bring to nonbelievers — so that he might set them and us apart from the world.

And this paradigm for consecrating bodily life, through God’s word and prayer, is useful beyond the marriage bed and dinner table. It’s useful for a practical Christian vision for exercise, which I’ll come back to at the end.

For God’s Glory

First, I want to share the four motivations that have become significant for me in these ten-plus years of pastoral ministry in which I’ve learned to make some modest regular exercise an assistant to my callings as pastor, husband, father, and Christian. These are four motivations, all under the main banner of “for the glory of God.”

1. For My Joy

I’ve learned I’m generally happier when I have exercised and have a regular pattern of exercise in my life. This is not in itself spiritual joy, but it’s sure useful in the pursuit of spiritual joy to not be unnecessarily encumbered.

Hippocrates discovered this: “Eating alone will not keep a man well; he also must take exercise.” But he also treated depression with a long walk. And if that didn’t seem to help right away, he advised taking another: “Walking is the best medicine.”

And Spurgeon discovered this: “A mouthful of sea air, or a stiff walk in the wind’s face would not give grace to the soul, but it would yield oxygen to the body, which is next best.”

2. For My Mind

The life of the mind is a deeply Christian concern — for every Christian and especially in Christian ministry. Our work includes more than the mind but never less.

So, how does exercise relate to the life of the mind? Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey writes:

We all know that exercise makes us feel better, but most of us have no idea why. We assume it’s because we’re burning off stress or reducing muscle tension or boosting endorphins, and we leave it at that. But the real reason we feel so good when we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its best, and in my view, this benefit of physical activity is far more important — and fascinating — than what it does for the body. Building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are essentially side effects. I often tell my patients that the point of exercise is to build and condition the brain. (Spark, 3, emphasis added)

How does exercise improve learning? Ratey says,

First, it optimizes your mind-set to improve alertness, attention, and motivation; second, it prepares and encourages nerve cells to bind to one another, which is the cellular basis for logging in new information; and third, it spurs the development of new nerve cells. . . . The body was designed to be pushed, and in pushing our bodies we push our brains too. (53)

3. For My Will

Pushing myself in exercise has served to strengthen my resolve, will, confidence, and eagerness to push myself elsewhere in life — in spiritual disciplines, as a husband and father, in difficult conversations, at work, and even around the house on evenings and weekends. This is so relevant for the emotionally taxing work of ministry.

Exercise teaches and reminds my body that exertion produces reward. There is often greater joy with greater work. Laziness may feel good for a moment, but it is not satisfying. So, I exercise to improve and sustain my work ethic.

4. For Love’s Sake

“Fitness” is a word Christians can work with. The question is “Fit for what?” There’s a phrase Paul uses twice in 2 Timothy 2:21 and Titus 3:1 that could serve as a great banner over Christian fitness: “ready for every good work.”

As Paul says to Titus,

[Christ] gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. . . . Insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. . . . Let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful. (Titus 2:14; 3:8, 14)

Holy Bodies and Souls

I want to finish by coming back to 1 Timothy 4:4–5 and the idea of making bodily life “holy by the word of God and prayer.”

“The word of God” means what God says — what he says about marriage, what he says about food, what he says about the world he made and how to use it, what he says about our bodies and their use (which we might support and strengthen with exercise).

So, what does God say about our bodies?

I want you to hear this from God, for you, if you would. I’m an imperfect vessel. I’m sure I won’t say everything perfectly. This is not an inerrant word from God, but I hope you’ll take it as from God, to you, to the degree it’s helpful. I’m basing this on what he says in Scripture, and the work I’ve done in the little exercise book. See if you might be able to hear this from God for your soul and body.

What does God say to you about your body?

First, he says, I made your body. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. I formed your inward parts. I knit you together in your mother’s womb. I have sustained your life and appointed the injuries and disabilities I designed for your ultimate good in Christ.

In fact, your body is not your own; I both made you and bought you with a price that you might glorify me in your body — not apart from your body, but in your body. I’m for your body, not against it, and your body is for me.

And then God says, But you need to know this: Sin has seized your body. Your body is fallen and under the curse with all creation because of human sin. You were born in sin. Your body is not what it would be if there were no sin.

However, marred by sin as your body is, it is still a marvel. Even under the curse, even with its many imperfections (and your body is not perfect!), it’s still a marvel and a gift.

Then God says to you, And I sent my Son to take on full humanity, mind and heart and body. The eternal Word became flesh. God the Son became human like you, taking a human body that he might save all of you, not just your soul, but your body too. And he rose again in his same human body. And he ascended to heaven in his glorified human body. And he now sits on heaven’s throne in his perfected human body, fully God and fully human — forever. Jesus knows what it’s like to have a human body. And his human body is a stunning dignifying of your human body.

Then God keeps going: And I sent my Spirit to dwell in your body. The Spirit, who is God himself, dwells in your human body. Your body is a temple, not because you’re impressive, but because you have God the Spirit dwelling in you. Yes, you still have indwelling sin, but now, in Jesus, you also have the indwelling Holy Spirit. You are able, with his help, to cultivate new desires, to make progress, to obey, to defeat sin.

And so God says, I’m calling you to glorify me, right now, in the body you have. However bad your body seems to you at present, I am for you and for your body. I mean for you to use it to do what I’ve called you to do. And if it feels like a hindrance more than a help, I have patience. And I want to help by my Spirit dwelling in you.

Bodily training is of some value. And godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also the life to come. What if you put your body to use in the pursuit of godliness? How might you condition your body in modest, reasonable ways for joy, for your mind, for your will, and to be ready and eager to do others good?

And finally, God says, One last thing: A day is coming when I will give you a spectacular bodily upgrade. Just you wait. I will transform your lowly body of humiliation to be like the glorious, resurrected body of my Son. Your future is embodied in an upgraded, sin-free, curse-free body that will only sweeten and no longer hamper your joy in my Son forever.

Prayer for Holy Bodies

So, we make exercise holy by what God tells us in Scripture about our bodies and their movement, and we complete the consecration of our bodies by prayer. That might start with prayer about our bodies and their exercise:

Father, help me to use this body you’ve given me to make much of you through enjoying who you are in Christ by doing others good. Guide me to a reasonable plan to steward this body and strengthen me to make progress.

And before a workout, you might pray:

Father, use these few minutes of discomfort to awaken me to my need for you and to enhance my clarity of thought and attention and depth of feeling and levels of energy and readiness to do good.

And during a workout, you pray:

Father, help me not give up too soon. Carry me to the finish.

And afterward, you pray:

Father, thank you. I made it. I’m done. You sustained me. Thank you for the body you’ve given, and use it, I ask, the rest of this day, and as many days as you give me to live with zeal for Jesus.