Good evening, we're in Luke chapter nine.
Luke chapter nine, the Bible reads.
Then he called his 12 disciples together
and gave them power and authority over all devils
and to cure diseases.
And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God
and to heal the sick.
And he said unto them, take nothing for your journey,
neither staves nor script, neither bread, neither money,
neither have two coats of peace.
And whatsoever house ye enter into,
there abide and thence depart.
And whosoever will not receive you,
when you go out of that city,
shake off the very dust from your feet
for a testimony against them.
And they departed and went through the towns,
preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.
Now Herod the Tetrarch heard of all that was done by him.
And he was perplexed because that it was said of some
that John was risen from the dead
and of some that Elias had appeared
and of others that one of the old prophets was risen again.
And Herod said, John have I beheaded,
but who is this of whom I hear such things?
And he decided to see him.
And the apostles when they returned,
told him all that they had done.
And he took them and went aside privately
into a desert place belonging to the city
called Bethsaida.
And the people when they knew it followed him,
and he received them and spake unto them
the kingdom of God and healed them
that had need of healing.
And when the day began to wear away,
they came the twelve and said unto him,
send the multitude away that they may go
into the towns and country round about
and lodge and get vittles,
for we are here in a desert place.
But he said unto them, give ye them to eat.
And they said, we have no more but five loaves
and two fishes, except we would go
and buy meat for all this people.
And they were about five thousand men.
And he said unto his disciples,
make them sit down by fifties in a company.
And they did so and made them all sit down.
And he took the five loaves and the two fishes.
And looking up to heaven, he blessed them and break
and gave to the disciples to set before the multitude.
And they did eat and were all filled.
And there was taken up of fragments
that remained of them, twelve baskets.
And it came to pass as he was alone praying,
his disciples were with him.
And he asked them, saying,
whom say the people that I am?
They answering, said John the Baptist.
But some say Elias, and others say
that one of the old prophets is risen again.
And he said unto them,
but whom say ye that I am?
Peter answering, said the Christ of God.
And he straightly charged them
and commanded them to tell no man that thing,
saying, the son of man must suffer many things
and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes
and be slain and be raised the third day.
And he said to them all, if any man will come after me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross daily
and follow me.
Whosoever will save his life shall lose it,
but whosoever will lose his life for my sake,
the same shall save it.
For what is a man advantage if he
gain the whole world and lose himself or be a castaway?
For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words,
of him shall the son of man be ashamed,
when he shall come in his own glory and in his father's
and of the holy angels.
But I tell you of a truth.
There be some standing here which shall not taste of death
till they see the kingdom of God.
And it came to pass about an eight days
after these saints, he took Peter and John and James
and went up into a mountain to pray.
And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered
and his raiment was white and glistering.
And behold, there talked with him two men,
which were Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory
and spake of his decease,
which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.
But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep.
And when they were awake, they saw his glory
and the two men that stood with him.
And it came to pass, as they departed from,
and Peter said unto Jesus,
Master, it is good for us to be here,
and let us make thee three tabernacles,
one for thee and one for Moses
and one for Elias, not knowing what he said.
While he thus spake, there came a cloud
and overshadowed them,
and they feared as they entered into the cloud.
And there came a voice out of the cloud saying,
this is my beloved son, hear him.
And when the voice was passed, Jesus was found alone.
And they kept it close and told no man in those days
any of those things which they had seen.
And it came to pass that on the next day,
when they were come down from the hill, much people met him.
And behold, a man of the company cried out saying,
Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son,
for he is my only child.
And lo, a spear taketh him, and he suddenly cryeth out,
and it teareth him, and he foameth again,
and bruising him, hardly departeth from him.
And I besought thy disciples to cast him out,
but they could not.
And Jesus answering said, oh, faithless and perverse
generation, how long shall they be with you and suffer you?
Bring thy son hither.
And as he was yet a coming, the devil threw him down and tear him.
And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the child
and delivered him again to his father.
They were all amazed at the mighty power of God.
But while they wondered every one after all things which Jesus did,
he said unto his disciples, let these sayings sink down into your ears.
For the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men.
But they understood not this saying, and it was hid from them,
that they perceived it not.
And they feared to ask him of that saying.
Then there arose a reasoning among them,
which of them should be the greatest.
And Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart,
took a child and set him by him, and said unto them,
Whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth me,
and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me.
For he that is least among you all, the same shall be great.
And John answered and said, Master,
we saw one casting out devils in thy name,
and we forbade him because he followed not with us.
And Jesus said unto him, forbid him not,
for he that is not against us is for us.
And it came to pass, when the time was come
that he should be received up,
he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem
and sent messengers before his face that they went
and entered into a village of the Samaritans
to make ready for him.
And they did not receive him because his face
was as though he would go to Jerusalem.
And when his disciples saw James and John saw this,
they said, Lord, will thou that we command fire
to come down from heaven and consume them,
even as Elias did.
But he turned and rebuked them, saying,
ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives,
but to save them.
And they went to another village.
And it came to pass that as they went in the way,
a certain man said unto them, Lord, I
will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.
And Jesus said unto him, foxes have holes,
and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man
hath not where to lay his head.
And he said unto another, follow me.
And he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
Jesus said unto him, let the dead bury their dead,
but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.
And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee,
but let me first go bid them farewell,
which are at my home, at my house.
And Jesus said unto him, no man have he put his hand
to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.
Let's pray to the Lord God.
Just thank you for this time we have
to hear the preaching of the word, Lord.
Just please bless this service, Lord.
Please fill the past from here with your spirit, Lord,
and give him boldness as he preaches your word unto us, Lord.
And we pray this all in Jesus' name, amen.
- Amen, all right, we are in Luke chapter number nine.
And the time of my sermon this evening is out of shape.
Out of shape, the Bible says in verse 62,
and Jesus said unto him,
no man, having put his hand to the plow and looking back,
is fit for the kingdom of God.
Tonight, I wanna talk about the subject
of being spiritually out of shape.
And I'm not planning to preach that long tonight.
This morning was really long, you know,
I preached for like an hour and 20.
So I'm actually gonna preach like an old IFB length sermon,
you know, a long old IFB,
which is about 15 minutes long, right?
But no promises.
All right, Luke chapter number nine here, out of shape.
Now, what am I referring to here?
Or should we say, what is the Bible referring to here?
Well, when the Bible talks about
a man putting his hands to the plow,
looking back, is not fit for the kingdom of God,
this actually has nothing to do with salvation, right?
A lot of false prophets will try to use passages like this
to try to teach you have to do works
in order to merit the kingdom of God,
that you have to be fit for the kingdom of God,
you have to deserve the kingdom of God.
But this is actually referring to deserving,
working for the kingdom of God, right?
In order for you to be a meat for the master's use,
in order for you to labor properly
and be an effective servant of God,
you gotta be spiritually fit to do so
in order to labor for that kingdom.
And this is what Jesus is saying.
The person who is plowing with his hands
but is constantly looking back isn't ready,
they're not fit, they're not meat for the master's use,
they're not gonna accomplish a work for God, why?
'Cause they're constantly looking back.
They're constantly looking back to their past,
they're not looking forward to the future,
they're not gonna be effective laborers for the harvest.
Now look at verse 57 here, by way of introduction,
first and foremost, in order to be fit
for the kingdom of God, we gotta count the cost, right?
It says in verse 57, it came to pass
that as they went in the way, a certain man said to him,
"Lord, I will follow thee with or soever thou goest."
Now, that is a pretty heavy commitment right there.
He said, "I'll go with you anywhere you go," right?
Verse 58, Jesus said to him,
"Foxes have holes in the birds of the air have nests,
but the son of man have not where to lay his head."
He says, all right, animals have a place to sleep,
foxes have holes where they can sleep,
birds have a home in their nest,
I don't even know where I'm gonna sleep.
Basically saying, if you come with me,
you better count the cost
that it's gonna get pretty wild, right?
You're not necessarily gonna be provided a home to sleep in.
What does he tell him? Count the cost.
And obviously when it comes to the Christian life,
we need to make sure that we count the cost
and not just realize,
well, I'm gonna be in this thing for the long haul.
You know, I hope that you are.
I wanna be in this thing for the long haul,
but we need to make sure that we count the cost first.
And realize that the Christian life is not easy.
It's not easy.
There's gonna be difficult times.
There's gonna be trials and tribulations.
It's not a bed of roses.
Make sure that you count the cost.
Not only that, but he wants him to have the right priorities.
It says in verse 59, "And he said unto another, Follow me."
And he said, "Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father."
Seems pretty reasonable.
His father just died.
And he's like, "I wanna go perform this funeral."
Jesus said in verse 60, "Jesus said unto him,
"Let the dead bury their dead,
"but go down and preach the kingdom of God."
Now, don't misunderstand this passage
because this seems kind of harsh.
But you do, what you have to understand is that,
you know, the ministry of Jesus Christ on this earth
was only for about three and a half years.
So he didn't have time for disciples
who were dilly-dallying and not, you know,
just having this half-hazard commitment.
He needed people who were serious about this stuff
because they were gonna make a massive impact
for the New Testament.
So this is why he's telling them this.
But the application that we can gather from this
is that we need to make sure that when we're serving God,
we have the right priorities, right?
In order to be effective for the kingdom of God,
we need to seek first the kingdom of God
and His righteousness, and then these things
referred to the earthly necessities of life
shall be added unto you.
As Christians, our priorities should be souls,
spiritual matters, pleasing the Lord Jesus Christ.
Those things come first.
We ought to set our affections on things above,
not on the things of this earth.
That's what it means to have the right priorities.
But the point that I want to make tonight
is the last verse talks about being fit
for the kingdom of God.
And I want to relate this to exercising,
dieting, power lifting, right?
I'm going to give you five points tonight.
And I'm going to give you five points tonight
that relate to that and kind of give
a spiritual application to it.
So we're going to talk about this evening,
why Christians, why pastors,
why churches are out of shape, okay?
Very important.
Now go with me, if you would, to John chapter four.
Go to John chapter four.
Now why are Christians, pastors, churches out of shape?
I'll tell you why.
Number one, they're not active enough.
You know, one thing that people need to realize
when they're trying to, you know, start exercising,
they want to lose weight, they, you know,
just they want to become more athletic
or just get involved in more activity.
Just be more active.
Even just taking walks around the block.
And in fact, believe it or not,
you actually burn more calories
just taking walks around the block sometimes, right?
Taking hikes, you know, going with your brother Jose,
looking for rattlesnakes.
That, you know, will help you cut some calories.
I mean, you might lose your life too, but hey, you know.
Being more active is important.
And in fact, they'll often tell you, you know,
going to the gym and exercising
is actually really important.
Dieting is really important,
but something that is just as important
is just your daily activity.
And obviously we know that like people nowadays
have desk jobs, are not necessarily very active.
They live very sedentary lifestyles.
And so we kind of have to go out of our way
to become physically active, right?
And when you're not physically active,
you're not burning calories.
Therefore, you're just kind of accumulating a lot of fat
and you get out of shape.
You get these, what I like to call,
unconditional love handles, okay?
And you know, that's how churches are.
They got a lot of love,
but they got unconditional love handles.
They're a little out of shape.
And I'll tell you why they're out of shape.
I'll tell you why pastors are out of shape spiritually,
why Christians get out of shape spiritually,
'cause they're not active enough.
They're not actually participating in the work of God.
You have a lot of churches out there
that are filled with members, high steeple,
lot of people, and it seems as though
there's a lot of activity, but quite frankly,
not enough evangelism is taking places in those churches.
Not enough laboring in the word of God
and in doctrine is taking place in those churches.
Luke 9 says this, "No man having put his hand to the plow."
What is that implying?
Activity, right?
The Bible says in 2 Timothy 4.5,
"But watch thou in all things endure afflictions,
do the work of an evangelist,
make full proof of thy ministry."
The Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10,
that we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus
unto good works.
Which God had before ordained that we should walk in them.
We ought to maintain good works, right?
The Bible constantly emphasizes this subject of working.
What does this mean?
Be active in the Christian life.
The Bible also says, look at John chapter four, if you would.
It says in verse 34, "Jesus saith unto him, 'My meat is to do the will of him that sent
me and to finish his work.'"
This is after they came to him and he's like, "Did anybody bring him anything to eat?"
And he's like, "I got meat that you know not of."
Right?
And obviously the meat that he's referring to is the work of God.
Essentially saying that what satiates his soul, what satiates him is doing the work
of God.
I want to say in verse 35, "Say not ye, there are yet four months, and then come with harvest.
Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes, look on the fields, for they are white already
to harvest."
Essentially, what he's saying here is, hey, don't wait till the conditions are right to
start working.
You know, a lot of times people are like, well, I'm going to start exercising once I
find the right gym, the right program, the right this, the right motivation, the right
that.
No, you just got to start.
You know, oh, well, I'm not going to really.
I'm not really interested in lifting yet until I know how to perfectly deadlift until I know
how to perfectly squat until I know how to perfectly bench until I know how to perfectly
execute this movement.
Then I'll start.
You're never going to start.
You just got to do it.
Go do it.
Get injured and then rehab yourself.
But at least you're doing some work.
And let me just say this.
Most people who are just physically inactive are just more prone to injury.
That's just it.
And you talk to anybody who's just physically active, they're always working out or doing
some sort of form of activity, they have a tendency to actually recover faster than those
who just are inactive all the time.
Because when they're active, that blood circulation actually causes a lot of healing.
And so just as a person is just physically inactive, they're just a couch potato, they're
not doing anything.
And a lot of churches are the same way.
They may think themselves to be spiritual athletes.
They may think to themselves to be strong in the Lord and the power of his might.
But when you look at their activity level, when you look at their eye watch, and see
how many steps they took, it's just very minimal, okay?
You know, I don't track my steps, I probably should, but I don't want to get discouraged.
But Brother Ulysses though, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, Brother Hernandez, I think
he takes like 20,000 steps a day, right?
Where is he at?
Is he in the PA room?
Can I get a hey man?
Yeah, it's about 20,000 steps, because the guy is just like, I mean, he's not doing
anything, but when he works, he's not really doing anything, but at least he's walking
though, you know?
Nah, he does a lot.
But just on a regular day, the guy is like taking like 20 steps, and like Easter, by
the way, like when we were prepping for Easter, it was like close to like 50,000 steps, you
know?
And given he's shorter, he has to take more steps to get from point A to point B, but
the point remains, hey man, the man is active.
Now Brother Ulysses, he's always on, or not always, but he's trying to bulk, you know
what I mean?
So he has to eat a lot.
Because he's almost too active.
So when he's eating all these calories to gain weight, he ends up burning them off because
he's always just walking back and forth.
The point that I'm making here is that obviously the man is very active, and you know what?
God wants us as God's people at a church to be active.
Track your steps, right?
Track the work that you're doing.
Make sure that you're doing something for the Lord.
And obviously in the work of God, there's a lot to be done.
And sometimes people can get the paralysis of the analysis and kind of wonder like, where
am I going to start?
Well, here's a good way.
There's an active thing for you to do.
Go and preach the gospel.
You know, not only will you get physical steps in, you'll get spiritual steps in as well.
That's one of the best things you could do.
And even if you're not ready to go and preach the gospel, you're not, you know, you don't
you didn't memorize the verses yet.
You don't know all the the introductions and the points and the steps.
It's okay.
You going with someone as a silent partner with the season, soul and are still doing
the work.
Like what it says in verse 36 and he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit
unto eternal life eternal that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.
And herein is that saying true.
One soweth and another reapeth.
I sent you to reap that wherein you bestowed no labor other men labored and you're entered
into their labors.
What's the point?
Be active.
If you want to be a spiritually fit person, at least get your steps in by going out and
preaching the gospel.
And obviously soul winning is not the only thing that we will do in order to be active.
The Bible talks about being prepared unto every good work.
The Bible talks about exercising yourself rather unto godliness, making sure that you're
laboring in the word, in doctrine, in prayer, and being a blessing to others.
This is important.
And you may think to yourself, I'm not ready for the weights though.
Okay then, just start off by at least walking around the block two or three times.
I'm not ready to actually go and preach the gospel.
Then start off by just going with someone who does preach the gospel.
And here's the thing, once you start walking a couple times, you get the blood flowing,
you feel good.
You actually start feeling good.
And you start tracking your steps, you're walking, and then someone invites you to the
gym and you go, you actually feel good.
And it's the same thing when you go and preach the gospel or when you go sowing with someone.
You may not know how to do it, and you may even be a little intimidated to do it, but
then you end up going and after a while you're like, I'm going to try that.
Let me try.
Let me give an introduction.
Let me quote some verses, because you're going to see people leading other people to the
Lord.
It's going to motivate you to start putting some weight on that barbell to lift that weight
as well, spiritually speaking.
The point that I'm making here is that the reason churches, pastors and Christians are
out of shape is because they're not physically active at all.
And you know, there's obviously it's not this church, but there's members of other churches.
Maybe they have, you know, they don't necessarily go to an active church, right?
They have a church that can be likened unto a sedentary church.
Pastor doesn't have a soul any time, he doesn't have a time when they go on to preach the
gospel.
Okay, then you need to make time for that.
You know, just as for example, as a pastor, I guess, you know, it would be considered
a sedentary job.
I have to compensate for that, right, by actually being purposely active, because if not, I'm
just going to gain all kinds of weight and just be out of shape.
Well, you know what, Christians who go to a church that don't have soul-winning times,
you need to compensate for that and go soul-winning anyways.
Go find people that know how to preach the gospel, get some people in your church to
go and preach the gospel, and get physically active.
Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, if you would.
So we're talking about Christians, pastors, and churches who are out of shape.
Why?
I'll tell you why.
They're not active enough.
They don't move around enough.
They're not walking around.
They're not preaching the gospel.
They're not putting their hand to the plow.
And here's another reason, in my experience, why people are out of shape, and that's because
they don't program.
They don't program.
Now, what do I mean by that?
Here's a way that you can understand.
They don't keep track of numbers.
See, what is programming?
Programming is intentional growth, right?
You're tracking what you are doing.
Now, why track what you are doing?
I'll tell you why.
Because you want to see if you're progressing or not.
That's important.
Well, you know, I'm not really into that.
I just feel good when I go to the gym.
Okay.
I'm not regressing though.
Because, you know, tracking numbers not only helps you to see if you're progressing, but
it also is an indicator to help warn you if you are regressing.
Okay.
And so a lot of times people get out of shape because they think they're progressing, but
they're actually not because they're not keeping track of their numbers.
How about this?
They're not keeping track of calories.
Now, I know what I'm talking about when it comes to this.
Okay.
And I can talk now about this because, you know, just being on a cut, I was extreme about
my calorie intake.
Okay.
You know, for whatever however long eternity that it was, you know, it was like I would
do about 1800 calories every single day.
And it was like to the calorie.
Like I told my wife, you know, you got to measure this, it needs to be on a scale.
And you know, God help you if you go above that number, you know, because I get a little,
you know, I just I get a little too radical when it comes to that.
And it's just like it needs to be no more than 1800.
And if it's 1801, oh, woman, you know, you're in trouble.
I'm exaggerating, but it's almost true, though.
But you know what?
You know, for weeks and every day and people say, well, don't you have a cheat day?
And I would say no.
Why am I going to cheat?
I'm an honest Christian.
You know, I'm not going to cheat.
It's just like I'm trying to reach a specific goal, a specific destination.
And you know what?
I'm not.
I can't waver on this.
This is going to remain this way.
And so what I did was actually had like a cheat, somewhat of a cheat meal or a cheat snack every
day.
But it would fit into my calories though.
So you know, I would get my little Reese's Zero peanut butter cups and I'll have three
every day.
And then at the end of the day, when I finished my calories, I would have about 200 to 250
calories left.
And I had a specific ice cream that literally had 200 to 250 calories left.
And once I finished that, I was just like, "It's done."
And then I just cry myself to sleep.
What'd you do?
You're just like, "Why?"
Because I can't eat anymore.
But there's a reason why I lost a lot of weight though.
It's because of that program.
You understand?
And you're like, "Well, I just kind of eat whatever I want or whatever."
Okay, then you're not going to reach any specific goal then.
Because sometimes people are like, "Well, I just think if I just eat this and I just
have this."
Yeah, you might lose about 10 pounds of water weight.
And you know, anybody can lose 10 pounds of water weight.
Let me just tell you right now.
Sorry to break it to you, but it's a fact.
You can lose 10 pounds of water weight.
And that's great if you do, if that's what you want.
But if you're trying to go beyond the 10 pounds, you're going to have to count some calories
and go beyond that because water weight is water.
I just gained 10 pounds of water weight just within the last week or so.
Not maybe 10, but you know, water weight comes and goes very fast.
Point that I'm making here is that if you're going to succeed just in like losing weight,
you have to count calories.
It's not like, well, I think this is healthy, so I'm just going to have this and you know,
I'll be fine.
Not going to work that way.
You're going to be discouraged in four weeks because you're gonna be like, man, the scale
went up so high.
Why?
I'm eating such nutritious food.
Yeah, but it's not necessarily about the nutrition, though that's important.
It's how much of it are you having?
Calories in, calories out.
And I can hear a pin drop in this building right now.
Okay.
The point that I'm making here is that, all right, let's get to the spiritual application
because you guys are mad about the real application of this, you know, and I look, I'm not tracking
calories right now per se because I got off the cut and I'm going to go through like a
little phase, like about two month phase where I'm just kind of enjoying food, but then I'm
getting back on again.
Okay.
I'm kind of maintaining right now, but here's the thing is that if you want to succeed,
if you're like, well, I want to get to this specific weight, okay, but do you have a program
though?
Do you have a plan to do so?
Or is it just kind of flying by the seat of your pants or you're not going to succeed
if you are.
And the same goes for lifting, you know, it's just like, well, I just go in and I just max
out.
Yeah.
You can do that like maybe once, but not twice, not thrice and definitely not four times.
And in fact, if you continue to do that, you will eventually regress in your strength because
you need to have progressive overload in order for you to get better.
But how do you know you're getting stronger?
If you're not keeping track of the reps, you're not keeping track of the volume, you're not
keeping track of the weight that you're lifting.
And look, I'm all for, I got spreadsheets.
I keep track of the weight.
I keep track of how hard it was from a scale of one to 10.
And I'm just like, well, you know, it was, it was an RPE seven.
I got, you know, my daughter was up last night and then again, I got three, four hours, five
hours of sleep.
I track all that.
I track all of it.
Like my spreadsheets are very detailed because I need to be able to look at it and say this
week went really well.
Oh, it's because I had, you know, a pizza right before and all the sodium put it into
my muscles.
And that's why I was able to lift this much or something.
Or I got great sleep or it's like, why am I failing right here?
Oh, it's cause I got three hours of sleep because my daughter was up all night or something,
you know, or I was traveling or something.
So it's good to keep track of those things and you know, people are not going to succeed
if you don't.
And I know this is, this is going over like a screen door in a submarine.
Okay.
I've been hearing, preaching about health and being disciplined in these areas and I'll
get to the spiritual aspect of it.
But you see how important this is though, calories, making sure you're programming in
order for you to get stronger.
Okay.
And even look, look, I don't know anything about like, cause you know, people are like,
there's guys who they want to bulk, they want to gain weight cause they have a hard time
gaining weight.
And I'm like, how do you have a hard time?
What?
How's that hard?
Excuse me?
Like, yeah, I just got to eat all this food.
I'm just like all the, and that's hard for you.
Like I have to restrain myself from not, from not eating everything that's in sight.
You know what I mean?
And it's just like, it's just so hard to put all this food.
I'm just like, brother, that's not, that's easy.
That's very easy.
Bulking is not hard at all.
But let me say this is that, you know, when it comes to programming also and nutrition
that, you know, you could, you know, when people bulk, meaning they start gaining weight,
they could actually gain bad weight because the goal is to gain good weight, which is
muscle weight, because sometimes the bulk can go so far, meaning that you're just accumulating
a bunch of fat from junk food and stuff.
And the same thing when it comes to the Christian life, right?
If you're not keeping track of the protein, you're not consuming 200 grams of protein
every single day, but you're just eating a bunch of junk food, you're not necessarily
accumulating good weight.
It's actually bad weight that you're accumulating.
And then you're like, why do I, why do I got a big back, you know, how do I got love handles
and a big back?
Cause you eat a lot of junk food.
That's why.
Okay.
Point that I'm making is that you need to keep track of numbers.
And when it comes to a church, we need to keep track of numbers, attendances, soul winning,
soul winning, people who get saved, salvations, baptisms, salvations.
And yes, even people who start going out soul winning as well.
We keep track of that.
Why?
Cause I want to know if our church is progressing in spiritual growth, you know, uh, an indicator
that a church is healthy is our souls being saved in that church.
Brother that's carnal.
We shouldn't be counting.
We should just be doing it because we love God.
Well, I do love God, which is why I'm tracking the numbers so that I'm making sure, look,
if I track the numbers this year and compare it to last year, okay, around this time,
and it was like the numbers were cut in half, that's an indicator to me that something
needs to change.
You know, if the soul winning numbers were like cut in half from last year, this time,
would be an indicator to me, okay, you know, maybe we need to preach on soul winning more.
We need to train more people, have more soul winning times.
There's a deficiency in here, we need to adjust something in our program because we are regressing
as a church.
You understand what I'm saying?
But if you're not keeping track of numbers, you could be regressing and not even know
it.
You're like, oh no, I'm just doing it because I love God, and it's just, yeah, I'm doing
it because I love God too, and we get to win more souls to Christ.
But look, I want to keep track of attendance numbers because it's an indicator that people
love the word of God.
How is that an indicator?
Because they're coming to listen to me scream at them for an entire hour about the Bible.
And that shows me that people are esteeming not yours truly, but they're esteeming the
word of God.
They're esteeming the preaching of God's word.
It's important to them.
This is why we track Sunday morning numbers, we attract Sunday night numbers, and we keep
track of Thursday night numbers.
Why?
To see how many of our new people are coming back Sunday night, and how many of those people
are coming Thursday night.
It's a good measure of spiritual growth.
Okay?
Well, I just don't see that in the Bible, brother.
Show me a verse in the Bible where the apostles kept track of salvations, baptisms, you know?
Okay.
Look at verse 10.
"Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak
the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined
together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house
of Chloëm, that there are contentions among you.
Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I of Cephas,
and I of Christ.
Is Christ divided?
Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius."
How do you know that, Paul?
Are those keeping track or what?
"Less than it should say that I baptized in my own name, and I baptized also the house
of Stephanus."
How do you know that, Paul?
"Besides, I know not whether I baptize any other."
So obviously, Paul is keeping track of his baptisms.
He's keeping track of his conversions and his baptisms.
How do you know?
Because he's naming them.
And you know what?
There's people in our church that keep track of the people they lead to the Lord and the
people that get baptized.
Believe it or not, I not only have a spreadsheet for my lifting numbers, I have a spreadsheet
for my soul winning too.
I have a spreadsheet for every week of every month and the names of the people that I get
saved.
So every once a week I go into my spreadsheet and I log the numbers of salvation that I've
gotten and right next to it I put the name of the people so I can pray for them.
You know there's people that do that.
And some people don't use spreadsheets, some people just use apple notes or whatever and
they keep track of it in that way.
But you know what, that's a good way to show you as an individual, Christian, am I winning
people to Christ.
Well brother, I don't really like keeping track of that.
Let me tell you why you don't keep track of it, it's because probably you don't do
any soul winning.
But churches don't keep track of numbers.
I'll tell you why, because they're probably not doing any.
Or they're not getting people saved.
That's not in the Bible.
Acts 2.41, 3,000 were saved.
Yeah, but did the disciples count that?
You know, I don't know, but God did though.
He put it in the Bible.
He could have just said a bunch of people got saved, or people got saved.
But he went out of his way to actually have it pinned down that 3,000 of them were saved.
You know, it's written for our admonition, "upon whom the ends of the world are come."
The Bible goes on to say, even in Acts chapter 6, it talks about the Word of God increasing,
the number of the disciples increasing.
Obviously, keeping track of numbers is a healthy thing to do.
You say, "what if you guys say you got 1,000 people saved and only 500 of them got saved?"
How do you know for a fact that they got saved?
Well, the reason we know they got saved is because we believe the Bible that states that
if they call upon the name of the Lord, they're saved.
Now, is it possible that there's a small percentage that didn't get saved?
Absolutely, of course.
But that does not impede us from counting those numbers because we still need a measure
by which we can indicate and monitor whether we're succeeding or failing.
Okay?
And look, you know, I messaged there's a missionary, an old IP missionary, and, you know, he was
promoting some missionaries, and he said that they're going to do some soul winning.
I was like, "Oh, wow, you know, I want to support some missionaries."
So I said, "Hey, does this ministry keep track of their soul winning numbers?"
And this is what he said.
He said, "Yes, we do, but we're not really big on numbers."
And the guy I was asking, you know, he's not necessarily the most conservative fundamental
Baptist, you know, and he's not really big.
He thinks it's like, he thinks it's really dumb to keep track of numbers.
But the ministry he's under thinks it's very important to keep track of numbers.
And the ministry he's under is actually booming as a ministry in this part of the country.
Like they have a ton of churches started.
They have a lot of missionaries.
And I'm telling you right now, the leader of that ministry keeps track of the numbers,
which is why it's succeeding.
But even this guy that I'm messaging, he would be considered in our eyes like a liberal,
but even he said, "Yes, we keep track of numbers."
Numbers aren't important, but yes, we keep track of numbers.
Why?
Because you can't have success without keeping track of numbers.
If we keep track of the numbers throughout the year regarding baptisms and we only saw
two baptisms, that's a problem.
You know why?
Because if we're seeing, let's say we see 1,000 salvations, but we only have two baptisms,
it's not an indicator that we're doing bad in our soul winning.
It's an indicator that we're not doing well in the follow-up for baptism.
It's an indicator that I'm not preaching enough about baptism.
It's an indicator that I need to train the church to approach people about baptism.
Now, thankfully, our church does really well when it comes to baptisms.
I think last year we had over 50 baptisms or something like that, and I think that's
a great thing.
And we keep track of people who actually go out and preach the gospel.
I keep track through the leaders.
We have, you're on a roll, like a literal spreadsheet roll.
And in that spreadsheet roll it tells us, do you go to church?
Do you go soul winning?
Do you pay your taxes?
No.
You know, do you tithe?
No.
We keep track of the basic things that we want to expect from a church member, which
is church attendance, soul winning, things of that nature.
You know?
Why?
Because we want to see success.
If things aren't being monitored, you're not going to be able to manage success.
And you can start regressing in the Christian life, regressing as a church, and then you're
going to have a church of like five people in the middle of nowhere, preaching like weird
doctrine and stuff, trying to make excuses why you're not growing.
You know what I'm saying?
You're going to start saying weird stuff and being all hyper-grace in order to grow the
church because you've got like four or five people in your church.
And look, if people have four or five people in their church and they're trying their best,
that's another situation, obviously.
I'm not down on people like that.
But what I am saying is turn the camera around.
You'll catch that later.
What I am saying is that most of these pastors who are like that are just lazy.
And it's not like, "Oh, we don't care about the numbers."
Of course you don't care because you ain't got no numbers.
It's easy to count attendance in a church of five.
One, two, three, four, five.
And it's easy to keep track of soul winning numbers if you don't got soul winning numbers.
But folks, when Brother Ulysses and the team goes to Mexico, I want to know how many people
are getting saved.
Why?
Because we're paying for that.
We're paying for people to go to Mexico.
And you know what, if people go to Mexico and they only get one salvation for three
hours of soul winning, not a best investment of our time.
We're thankful for that one soul that got saved, but it's not necessarily worth it.
Now, thankfully, that's not the case.
You know, Mexico, in general, we get about 17 or 15 to 20 people saved on a really good
trip.
Well, yesterday we got 11 saved.
That's worth it.
So that's a gauge to me.
And I tell them like, how many people got saved?
And it's just like 11.
It's all right.
That means we keep going.
And it's an indicator.
Should we go back to that same area or not?
So we're not spinning our wheels.
The point that I'm making is don't ever have this attitude, "Why are we counting the numbers
for?"
Why do you put the numbers on the bulletin so that you can see where your investment
is going?
That's why.
Because we want to know that we are a church that is healthy because we're getting people
saved.
We're getting people baptized.
That's carnal.
Yeah, that sounds like something that a lazy pastor would say for sure.
Go to Hebrews chapter 12 if you would.
Hebrews chapter 12.
And look, let me just tell you, I have yet to meet a church that is extremely successful
in the ministry that did not count.
Church Baptist Church of Hammond counted.
You know, my sin, not my sinning church, oh, my sinning church counts too.
Yeah.
You know, the church that I got saved in counts.
Any huge church that does a lot of soul winning and successful in soul winning and baptizing
counts.
They're not like, well, we'll just let success happen.
We'll just do this planet fitness type of thing and, you know, just go in, you know,
just go into the gym and just whatever you feel like doing, you want to get on the treadmill,
get on the treadmill.
If you want to get on the suss machine, get on the suss machine.
No one's going to judge you.
You want to do Pilates or something, go for it.
You want to do yoga, you know, whatever you want to do.
I'm sorry if you guys go to Planet Fitness or whatever, but you understood the illustration
though.
We want to be intentional about our growth.
Look, you want to read through the Bible, you've got to keep track of Bible reading.
It's not like, you know, this is what I'm going to read, and the next day it's like,
have a Bible reading schedule.
Keep track of the chapters that you're reading so you can measure your success in your Bible
reading.
And this is why, you know, our Bible reading calendar not only has a section for you to
check off for your Bible reading but even for your prayer life.
It's a good way to measure success even in your prayer life.
Am I praying every day?
Am I reading the Bible every day?
Okay.
Yeah, but that's why your church produces soul-winning, sanctified, zealous Christians.
You got it right?
The point that I'm making here is that if you want to succeed in the Christian life,
you got to keep track of numbers.
If you want to lose weight, got to keep track of those calories.
You want to get stronger?
You better program.
You know?
And look, also programming helps us to know when we have to adjust certain things.
You know, sometimes if I'm programming for a particular lift and I feel like I'm regressing,
it's like, alright, time to adjust something because I'm getting weaker.
I was stronger last year than I am this year.
You know, something happened.
I need to change something here.
But if you're just kind of going by the seat of your pants, you're not really going to
succeed.
You're not going to progress.
That's just how it works.
Okay?
Here's another reason why Christians, churches, pastors are not fit.
We said number one, they're not active enough, meaning they're not soul winning.
They're not doing the work of the Lord.
Number two, they don't program.
They don't keep track of their numbers.
Number three, they don't build stamina.
Okay?
Now, I'm not talking about running, okay?
But if that's your thing, you know, more power to you, I guess.
But I will say this, you know, you need to build stamina in the area that you're working
on.
And here's the best way I can describe it because I'm not against running.
I am against running, actually.
Sorry.
Let me correct that.
I am personally.
But I'm not against you running.
Okay?
Well, you know, for example, you know, we got a lot of jiu-jitsu guys in our church.
And they'll tell you if you want to increase your stamina in jiu-jitsu, you don't go run
10 miles.
It doesn't transfer over.
So I got to get better at jiu-jitsu.
So I'm going to go run 10 to 15 miles and that will help me to have more stamina in
jiu-jitsu.
That's actually completely false.
The way you get better at jiu-jitsu is by doing jiu-jitsu.
So if you want to build stamina and last in jiu-jitsu, you have to be actually participating
in that particular activity.
And the same thing goes with powerlifting.
If you want to become really good at powerlifting, frequency is what it is.
You need frequency.
For example, myself, in order for me to squat a good amount of weight, I need to add more
frequency, meaning that I have to squat more than once a week, squat twice a week.
And high volume.
Building stamina in that area where I can do a really hard workout, rack the bar, and
I still got more in the tank.
That's what it means to build stamina.
Look at Hebrews 12 verse 1, it says, "Wherefore, seeing we are also compassed about with so
great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which thus so easily
beset us.
Let us run with patience the race that is set before us."
What does it mean to run with patience?
Another word for patience is endurance.
Run with endurance, meaning that you can last for long periods of time without quitting.
Now when it comes to the Christian life, one thing that will give you endurance in the
Christian life is just doing the Christian life.
Now I had a conversation with a family in our church early this morning, and I won't
say their names or anything like that, but it was a great conversation.
It was very encouraging.
And you know, the wife said this, I'm always sharing illustrations with people without
asking permission, you know, the wife was like, man, when I first came to church, like
the preaching was so hard, it was just like, I don't know how much more of this I can
take.
It's just like every time it was like a sermon, like about me and I just have to like get
it right and it was just like, oh, it's so hard, but now she's been here for so long
and now it's just like, it's easy.
She enjoys it.
And this is how the Bible puts it.
She's able to endure sound doctrine.
And let me just say this, you know, this morning sermon, I preach for an hour and 20 minutes.
That would not fly in old IFB church.
Not even close.
A long sermon in old IFB church is like maybe 45 minutes and even then people are like looking
at the clock, like you guys would be at the hour and 30 minute mark or something.
But I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this that a lot of people even this morning
didn't know it was an hour, 20 minute long sermon.
Some people were like I thought it was like 50 minute long or something like that.
But I'm going to tell you why because they built endurance.
They're able to endure sound doctrine.
And obviously it helps that I'm not giving a TED talk up here too.
You know what I mean?
Like it helps that I'm not preaching a lame sermon because obviously if someone is preaching
for an hour long and their sermon sucks, you know what I mean, then I don't expect you
to endure that.
But if it's a sermon that's saturated with scripture, biblical concepts, it's enjoyable,
you know, you should be able to endure that.
And I feel like our church has done well with that.
You know, for me, an hour and 20 minute sermon is long.
But for like the old IB, like a 50 to an hour sermon is long.
But for us, that's like another day in the office.
Me preaching for an hour is just nothing new.
And you know what?
New Christians come to our church and they build endurance.
They build an appetite for hard, long preaching.
I mean how many times have you heard whore since you've been in this church?
You've heard that many times.
You've heard whore, you've heard faggot, I mean how many times have you heard Jew?
And you're not like huh, huh, huh, your side's hurting because you can't handle it.
You're cramping up, you don't cramp up when I preach.
You see, the goal is to be able to endure preaching to the point where you're not cramping
up because you have salt in yourselves, right?
You've got those spiritual electrolytes in your body because you've been doing it for
so long, you're three to thrive, you're three to thrive, and you're not threatening to beat
me up or something because you're three to thrive or something.
You're three to thrive, you read your Bible, you win souls to Christ, you're intaking the
spiritual electrolytes, and you are enduring sound doctrine, you're able to handle the
meat of the word, I'm not giving you marshmallows, a Ted Talk, and liberal preaching.
You're hearing hard preaching so it's just like I'm used to the ribeye.
This kind of preaching is like ribeye preaching, it's that good meat, and so your body can
handle it.
You know I'm really proud of my daughter, my youngest daughter Charity, she's a protein
girl.
In the morning she just eats, she asks for eggs and bacon, she's like bakken, she's like
bakken, she wants bakken.
And my wife will give her toast and she just puts the toast aside and she wants the eggs
and bacon, bakken.
And then if we have ground beef she wants the ground beef, you know.
She can endure that.
But you know there's adults that can't even endure that, spiritually speaking too.
You know I guarantee you there's teenagers in our church that can handle you know faggot
and whore and hard preaching and preaching against immodesty and preaching against false
prophets more than the adults who have been in church for a long period of time than other
churches.
Most adults in other churches would just fall over dead.
They would cramp up, they have to be taken down in the stretcher.
They need an IV.
They would get heat exhaustion from all the fire from the pulpit.
But the teenagers are just like, "Really, that was good."
I preach sermons where it's just super hard, and then on the ride home my son is like,
"Dad, that was awesome.
I love that sermon, Dad.
That was good, Dad.
I like this one part, Dad.
You like that?
Yeah, that was good."
It's not like, "Dad, why would you say something like that?"
I'm training my kids to endure sound doctrine.
You know, "endure" sounds like it's just so hard.
Yeah, because it is.
It's called hard preaching.
And you know what?
You need to endure sound doctrine so you're not being carried away with fables and lies,
you know?
All this nonsense that's out there.
So when you hear lame preaching, even if you're mad at me for preaching against you, you
can't really hear any other preaching because all the other preaching out there sucks anyways.
I could never go to a liberal church.
I'd rather just listen to Pastor Mahia yell at me for an entire hour or at least I know
I'll get fed.
Because I've never been to a liberal church but I'm sure Cody's told me.
You know it's just, I'm not afraid to lose members to liberal churches, I'm just not.
It's not a fear of mine.
I don't have a phobia of that at all, you know, because I know that our people have
built an appetite for this type of preaching, for saturated biblical preaching.
Build stamina, right?
Be able to endure the sound doctrine.
Why are people, why are Christians, pastors, and churches out of shape?
Because they can endure the preaching, it's too hard for them, it's too much, you know.
They're lactose intolerant.
They're like vegans, you know, like vegetarian vegans that just cannot handle the meat of
the word.
And you know, we've had people like visitors come and they're, you know, I'll preach,
you know, you guys bring visitors like sometimes on the worst sermons, you know.
And then, you know, I'm preaching a hard sermon and our regular members are like, "Amen."
You know, they're just like, "That was good," you know.
And then the other person's like, "It's just like die," you know, like, "That's only the third point?"
Go back to, uh, go to 2nd Timothy chapter 2 again, 2nd Timothy chapter 2.
I'm trying not to preach long tonight, I got a couple of minutes left and two more points.
By the way, the Bible says 2nd Timothy 2.3 says, "Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."
You know, God expects us to endure the hard truths.
And, you know, let me just say this, is that, you know, when you listen to hard preaching,
you know, saturated biblical preaching, you're actually able to enjoy the exhortations that
much the more.
So, like, the nice preaching that I have, you're actually like, "Wow, that was really
nice."
Like, I really, you actually appreciate that more.
But what if you only had exhortations, right?
What, you know, there's times when my preaching is sweet, you know, it's always, like, you
know, bitter and sometimes it's sweet, but when it's sweet, you appreciate it more.
You're like, "Wow, that was really lovely," right?
But what if you only had lovely, you know?
It's important for us, in order to enjoy the dessert, we have to finish our meal.
We got to get the meat of the word, okay?
All right, why are Christians out of shape?
Why are pastors out of shape?
Why are churches out of shape?
I'll tell you why.
They're too overweight.
And that's definitely true for pastors, like, in the most literal sense.
You visit the South, there's a lot of overweight preachers, okay?
But look, look, and if you're overweight, I'm in your group, okay, because, you know,
I may be thin right now, but I'm a fat boy in here though.
The inner man is a fat boy, okay.
Don't let the small weight confuse you, I love to eat just like you, okay?
So don't be offended at this, because I know what I'm talking about, okay?
But it's true, some people are just overweight, which is why they're out of shape.
It minimizes their mobility, you break a sweat tying your shoes, it's like you just can't
live a normal life, gotta buy new clothes and stuff every time.
I know what I'm talking about, because I'm talking about myself here, okay?
And obviously that's why I got to work on it, alright?
You know, people are like, "What's your sin, Pastor Gluttony, what do you mean?
You know what my sin is.
I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke, I don't run with those that do, I like to eat!"
But you know, this is true spiritually speaking too.
Sometimes people are spiritually overweight and that's why they're not fitting the Lord.
You know why?
Because their heart is as fat as grease, that's what the Bible says.
They're filling their hearts with a bunch of junk food, they're not filling their hearts
with the right types of things, with the Word of God, with preaching, therefore they're
spiritually overweight.
And what does the Bible say?
"Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which thus so easily beset us."
Look at 2nd Timothy 2, 4, it says, "No man that warth and tangled himself with the affairs
of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier," the Bible tells
us.
You know, and as I mentioned, you've got to put on the right kind of weight.
If you're going to lift weights and be healthy, you've actually got to put on the right type
of weight.
Sometimes, you know, people fill themselves up with podcasts and shows and things that
are just not beneficial to the Christian life.
You know, they fill themselves up with the Republican Party, politicians, you know, sports
and all this stuff.
And then this is like there's no room left for the protein.
There's no room left for the preaching, for your walk with God, for prayer, for soul winning.
You know, if you're going to increase your calories, make sure a large portion of that
is protein.
Then a lot of it comes from protein.
You know, the 1800 calories that I would consume, I would always make sure that 200 grams of
that was protein.
And you know, that, I mean, I would kind of fluctuate on the 1800 calorie thing, but I
would never, ever compromise on the 200 mark.
I tell my wife, 200, and she's like, you got 195, and I'm like, what are you trying to
do to me?
You're trying to mess up my squats or my deadlift, like 200, I need 200.
Why?
Because that's like the most important thing.
And you know what, if you're going to go over a little on the things that you put in
your heart, go over by putting more preaching into your heart.
You know, you got your 200 grams of protein by Three to Thrive, you know, go 210 and go
listen to some sermons by my friends when you go home, right?
Go increase more protein.
Instead of going home and, you know, listening to how the world's going to end because of
the tariffs or whatever, you know, go and actually listen to preaching.
Go listen to some preaching, go listen to some gothic music, go participate in activities
that will increase your protein intake spiritually speaking.
Okay.
Point that I'm making is that some people are just too overweight, which is why spiritually
speaking they are not effective for the service of God.
They're filling their hearts with things that are not going to benefit them in the long
run.
All right.
Two more minutes.
I'm done.
I'm trying to hit this mark here.
Last point.
Go to Matthew chapter 11.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
I'm just kidding.
All right.
Here's the last reason why people are spiritually out of shape and that is because they don't
take rest days, believe it or not, rest days.
You know, one thing they teach you, who's they?
You know, they, okay?
One thing they teach you is that when you're lifting weights, you have to make sure you
take a rest day for that particular body part or whatever, okay?
And you know, you got to make sure you get your eight hours of sleep in, you're taking
your rest day.
Why?
Because it's, you don't necessarily build, no, you don't build muscle at all when you're
in the gym, by the way.
Get a good little pump for sure.
You know, the blood flows and you get that pump, but muscle isn't actually built in
the gym at all.
It's actually built in the kitchen and while you're sleeping.
You actually tear your muscle.
You're tearing down your muscle when you're in the gym.
And then when you go to sleep, then, you know, your body begins to work on and rebuilding
that tissue.
So that muscle you tore, if you consume enough protein, they'll take that protein and make
the muscle stronger.
Okay.
That's why it's important to get a good rest.
And so, you know, runners know this, people who power lift know this.
You know, I know this personally just because if there's nights that I don't get a good
night's sleep, my lifts don't go well the very next day.
I'm really tired, my body feels weak, you know, because I don't get enough rest.
And in fact, you can actually begin to regress substantially if you don't take enough rest
days.
You know, and obviously I'm not saying that you have to like, you know, rest for long
periods of time, but you know, there has to be a time when you rest that particular muscle
group.
Okay.
You know, squatting on Monday and then squatting on Tuesday is not a good idea.
You're not, you shouldn't do that.
Okay.
There needs to be a couple days in between that particular exercise in order for you
to recover.
So rest is good for recovery, right?
That's what I'm saying.
Now, how do we apply this spiritually?
I'm not talking about resting from church.
Stay three to thrive.
Amen.
No, I think you should take a break from coming to church.
You know, yeah, you do take breaks.
It's called Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and then you come back Thursday.
Then you take another break from Friday to Saturday for Sunday.
And then when he comes Sunday morning, you take a break in between services.
Those are the good breaks.
Amen.
But this is what I mean by resting because, you know, spiritually speaking, the way we
rest is actually by reading the Word of God and walking with God every single day.
Look what it says in Matthew 11 28, "Come unto me, are ye that labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall
find rest into your souls."
You know, if you want to succeed in the Christian life in the service of God, you have to work.
You got to program.
You got to keep track of numbers.
But let me say this, if you're not doing this, you will actually begin to regress as a Christian
if you're not walking with God.
And let me just remind you as your pastor, you better make sure that you're reading your
Bible every single day.
You better make sure you're taking your rest days.
When you go home, you wake up in the morning, before you do anything else, open the Bible
and you walk with the Lord.
Sit at the feet of Jesus and hear His word.
That's a rest.
Because that's how you rejuvenate yourself.
That's how you recover.
That's how you get yourself spiritually minded.
You got to feed the inner man so that the inner man is fit to do the work of the Lord.
And you know, don't undermine this.
This is the most important part of the sermon here.
Ok?
The most important part of the sermon is that you walk with God.
Believe it or not, yes, you have a personal relationship with the Lord.
And people who say that don't even know what that means.
The reason we know what it means is because we know what it entails.
It's opening the Word of God, worshipping God, praying unto the Lord, reading God's
Word, consuming the content of the Bible, examining your heart.
We need that.
Ok?
Every single day, we need that.
And so that's the rest day.
You know, in order for you to be fit for the Kingdom of God, you need these elements in
order to do so.
And so, you know, if you want to be just an out of shape, fat Christian, who's not strong
in the Lord and the power of his might, you're lazy, you're sedentary, yeah, stop counting
numbers.
You know, yeah, yeah, don't program, yeah, you know, don't intake whatever's going into
your heart, the Word of God.
You know, don't worry about any of that because that's a recipe for disaster here.
But if you actually want to progress in the Christian life, you need to do these things
in order to be fit for the Kingdom of God.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much for your Word, and Lord, help us as your people to be meat
for the Master's use.
Help us to be fit in the Lord for your work, Lord, and I pray that you'd help us to walk
with you this coming week as we wake up in the morning and read the Word of God and meditate
upon the things of the Word of God.
And I pray that you'd help us to esteem spiritual matters far more than anything else that we're
consumed with.
Lord, life is filled with different activities that don't necessarily entail the work of
Christ, and some of those activities are just necessary things that we just have to do.
But I pray that you'd help us as your people to seek first the kingdom of God and never
put the work of God on the back burner, never put our walk with God on the back burner.
Help us to always make sure that we're striving to be productive in the work of the Lord by
winning people to Christ, by being a blessing to our brothers and sisters in Christ, by
being a blessing in our church.
And I pray, Lord, that you'd use our church continuously to see more people saved and
baptized and, Lord, may you bless us as we go on our way.
Give us a great week.
We love you, we thank you.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.