Summary of Love - Fruit of the Spirit Series

Our Bible study for this week focused on loving our neighbor as our self. We all have people in our lives who annoy us, or are sometimes even rude to us, but God Wants us to love these people unconditionally. The question is, why? Why should I love someone who is such a pain? The answer, because God first loved us, and them. We are God's ambassadors, we represent Him. Thus, we need to love everyone, even our enemies or those who annoy us. Most people would get confused on the account that the word love has many different meanings. There is the love you have for you friend or sibling. The love you have for a parent or mentor. The love you have for your spouse, and then last of all, there is agape love. Agape love is the love we should have for all mankind. With this kind of love I am loving through Christ. Most of the time I probably won't even like the person I am "loving". We can not love this way on our own. Only through Christ is this kind of love possible. Our memory verses for this week where James 1:1-4. In these verses James talks about how we should count all joy when we meet trials of various kinds. The reason why..... because the trials God send our way produce steadfastness in Him. That is why we must be steadfast in Christ to have agape love. Most of the time we don't even want to have this kind of love, but God works in our hearts until we sincerely do.

Thank you Jacob!

Ben Coder Sermon

Ben Coder had a sermon on February 25th. See notes and recording.

Spiritual Fitness

Introduction

a.     1 Timothy 4:6-8

b.     There are many parallels between physical fitness and spiritual fitness

c.      That’s what we hope to examine today.

I.                   Fitness requires a change from natural lifestyle

a.     Diet

                                                              i.      Learn to despise bad food – Psalm 101:3-4

                                                            ii.      Learn to not desire “ok” food –

                                                          iii.      Learn to love good food – Psalm 1:1-3

b.     Pastimes

                                                              i.      Stop all harmful activities – Galatians 5:19-21

                                                            ii.      Start helpful activities – Galatians 5:22-23

                                                          iii.      Strongly consider “neutral” activities

 -     I Corinthians 10:23-24

 -     Different context, but still applicable

II.                 Join a gym – Hebrews 10:23-24

a.     Friends/trainers can show you exercises that you wouldn’t have thought to do before

b.     Friends can be accountability partners

c.      Note all the “cans”

                                                              i.      It is a choice whether you want your friends to be fitness partners or not

                                                            ii.      Sometimes, we need to initiate it

 -     What do you talk about?

 -     Are you exercising, or chilling?

d.     Surround yourself with trainers

                                                              i.      I Corinthians 4:14-21

                                                            ii.      Friend

 -     He isn’t pushy

 -     Purely by being who he is, he encourages me to push on

 -     If I ask, he’s more than happy to show me

III.              Consistent time must be made for it

a.     There are “prime” times for a workout

                                                              i.      Morning

 -     Psalm 5:3

 2.     Note – pray and watch how God will show Himself

                                                            ii.      Evening

 -     Psalm 42:8

 -     Psalm 63:6

 -     We close by dwelling on how He showed Himself to us that day

b.     It must be a priority

                                                              i.      Luke 12:34

 -     All these things will be added unto you

 -     Your pastimes show your priorities

                                                            ii.      Hebrews 12:1-2

 -     Lay aside weights

 -     These aren’t dumbbells, these are shackles

 -     Eliminate pastimes that hold you back

c.      Enemy of excellence is goodness

                                                              i.      “Good” things may not be the best things

                                                            ii.      If pressed for time, good things may need to leave to make way for the best things

IV.              It should result in desire, not a chore

a.     Romans 12:1

                                                              i.      Therefore…

                                                            ii.      Christianity is backwards from all other religions

b.     Where your heart is…

c.      Are we eternally focused?

d.     Eventually, discipline should no longer be the driving force – this won’t last

e.     Romans 7:14-25

                                                              i.      Desire should be driving force

                                                            ii.      However, we are still human

                                                          iii.      This is where discipline comes in

                                                         iv.      We will have off-days where we sleep in or just don’t feel like it

 -     Discipline

 -     Gym membership comes in handy

Conclusion

a.     What’s the state of your spiritual fitness?

b.     How spiritually fit are your friends?

c.      Have you joined a gym, or are you floundering about with no accountability?

d.     We are in training – we don’t know when we’re going to be called to sub in for the most intense part of the game

e.     We need to be ready and waiting to go in; “I’ll do it tomorrow” could be too late to perform

f.       Jude 3 – How can we contend for the faith if we are spiritually unfit?