Building Spiritual Muscle

0:00:01 - Speaker 1
Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture.

0:00:10 - Speaker 2
Be so secure in your spiritual skin that when the Bible says physical exercise profits you some, that's great, you should do it, but spiritual exercise, that's eternal.

0:00:27 - Speaker 1
You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com Today. If this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us that's like saying amen or yes. Then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs.

0:00:55 - Speaker 2
So the apostle Paul tells Timothy that bodily exercise profits a little bit, but godly discipline or godly exercise profits us much, or actually eternally. So we're going to do that now. But how about this as a word of wisdom? I pray that if you were to go to a health club and you see guys that are exercising, women who are exercising, and you want to get into shape, so you hire a trainer. This happens all the time, so you hire a trainer. And I've learned something as I've gotten older when I was younger, I would have the ideas and the energy and the zeal to do all these things, and so if I were going to train somebody, I would put them through all of these routines and all of this diet and all of this exercise and I would do it as long as possible, as often as possible and as hard as possible, because we're going to be disciplined and we're going to build up our bodies. That's okay, I get it. I get it.

But if you've ever attempted that, you'll become frustrated because nothing seems to be happening, where you go from an experience really sore and noticing that you're doing, feeling better than what you were without exercising, but you're not reaching the goals that you were hoping to, because what's happening is you are actually living out the passions of your trainer instead of what's right for you. You see, jack, where in the world are you going with this? Exactly here, when we are many times young, or very zealous, or and or biblically ignorant, we get some information and we get so pumped up about it that we run with it and we get into what we would call Christian disciplines and we need to have our life disciplined. And Paul said I beat my body into subjection. Paul didn't actually beat himself up. Okay, he knew himself and he knew who Jesus was and he found out what Jesus wanted for him. So what you want to be careful about in Christian disciplines is that you're not living out what some other person's passions have for you.

Okay, okay, if this person in fact, yesterday, you guys, I went up to a woman. She had a t-shirt on and she said I'm a prayer warrior as spiritual sniper, and I said that's an awesome, that's an awesome t-shirt, I appreciate your t-shirt. And she goes yeah, thanks a lot for saying so. Is there anything I can pray for you about? Now? Listen to this. This is awesome because this lady we're at a place here in Southern California called Knott's Berry Farm. There was only about 10,000 people there and she didn't care.

She's a spiritual warrior, she's a spiritual sniper. She prays. But what would have been really weird is how come you don't have your shirt on? Where's your spiritual sniper shirt? And if you want to pray, you need to get on your knees now with me and pray right now. And it's like this is kind of weird, right? Well, she didn't do that and kudos to her.

You could tell she was a seasoned saint. She was really old, like me, probably older than me. She was a woman you could tell of wisdom, but she had zeal, but it was metered. It was not silly. So you want to be careful about people who will establish for you rules and regulations that are theoretical rather than practical. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for a thousand commitment for Jesus. I live my life that way. If you know me, that's how it is. But for me to turn around and say to somebody man, you need to live for Jesus at 180 miles an hour. You need to live for Jesus a thousand percent. You need to get on your knees now. You need to, you need oh, you need to be quiet. That doesn't work. What we need to do is, when we talk about Christian disciplines, the greatest Christian discipline you can experience. Number one is where most people fail.

Get on a constant diet of the Bible. I don't care if it's three verses or three chapters a day, just do it. Number two, when we stack up things to do and we don't do the main thing first, like read the Bible and talk to God. I mean talk to God, not talking to your friends, like this, and you're speaking to your wife and your kids or your husband and your wife, and then you go to be a disciplined believer and you say almighty God, thou who inhabits the eternity, the creator of the universe, what are you doing? He already knows all that stuff, but you wanna say to him you don't change your voice, you don't get some vibrato. Almighty God, you who, no, no, talk to him and say to him like you would to any other person. Lord, thank you for this day, thank you for this morning, thank you for the peace and the solitude of this place and, lord, I just ask you that you would do that, you would do what is physically experiential right now. Would you do this? In my heart, lord, in my life, I can hear the transition this morning of the crickets and at the same time, now the birds are starting to sing Behind me. I can hear a woodpecker someplace not too far away. God, can you, lord, touch my heart in such a way that you do in me what you want to have done in me?

You know, paul told the saints I believe, at Colossae. He said those who compare themselves among themselves, they're not wise. That a great word, cause you know, there's a tendency for us, in our insecurities, to be like somebody else, cause we don't like who we are or we're not sure who we are, even in Jesus. We haven't figured that out yet. So when we see a saintly person, we'll have a tendency to go, buy the clothes they wear or walk like they walk, or get their kind of shoes or where do they go. And then we might have a more passionate type of thought where I'm going to go up to them and ask them if they'll mentor me. That's cool. But if that person is who you really think they are and who they should be, they're going to tell you.

I tell you what, buddy, I want you to read the book of Philippians. You read that now. I'll meet you back here next week, you know. We'll get together an hour before church service or a half an hour before church service and we'll talk about Philippians. Are you going to do that? Will you do it? You see, why talk about disciplines when the motive is wrong? Look what I'm doing. I work out this much a day, an hour, for Jesus. I pray this long, I read these many chapters. I do all these things and I'm doing exercise, but there's no muscle. It's being done wrong. Your diet is off. You're not getting the nutrients, spiritually, to match your activity. There's a lot of zeal, little knowledge.

God is a person. Listen, the reason why you are a person is because God's a person. He made you in his image. Moral likeness, that means God is a personality. I love what CS Lewis says.

Cs Lewis says that God is more of a mind than anything else. That's a serious thought. You got to think about that for a minute. That God is a mind. Listen, be careful. God is a mind, m-i-n-d. A mind. And then you think a brain. You mean eight pounds of gray matter sitting on a stainless steel table. No, that's not a mind, that's a brain. The brain and the mind have nothing to do with each other. The brain's the brain. If it's living or dead, it's a brain. It's an apparatus, it's a tool, physical. But the mind inhabits the brain the emotions, the feelings, the thoughts, everything of us. How about this? The mind uses the brain as a tool, and then your brain uses your body as a tool. So God, the Bible says, is spirit. That's why CS Lewis says that God is more of a mind.

So when we think about Jesus, what are we thinking about? We're thinking about the mind of God, which we could also say the will of God. Think about it the thoughts of God, the mind of God, the will of God, the personality of God. How do we know Jesus? When he walked? Look at it this way when he walked, you were watching, they were watching the will of God walking. Don't you love that? When he walked along the shores of Galilee, you were watching the mind of God walk. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. God's will became flesh and you could touch him, you could talk to him, you could experience him. Did Jesus ever once say do 10 push-ups and come and follow me? Did he ever say if you can do 100 pull-ups, you can be on my team? All he said was come and follow me, and that's what I want you to go with today is the thought Are you enjoying your walk with Jesus Christ or are you living your life for the approval of others? Are you saying by your actions, I hope those people approve of me, I hope that religious group approves of me, I hope that that gathering of really holy people think I'm something Because I got the same shirts they do.

Same shoes. I drink the same coffee they do. I use the same words they do. Don't do that, don't do that. Listen, 46 years. I've been a Christian Early on in my Christian life.

Like most Christians, you're insecure, you don't know. You know that God is real and he loves you and he died for you, but you're not exactly sure who you are. And I remember thinking that if I, maybe, if I shaved my head and got a big rotunda kind of belly and wore a turtleneck sweater like Chuck Smith, my pastor, maybe then I'd be spiritual, maybe if I talked slower and I paused more often and moved my hand a certain way, that I would be more spiritual like Pastor Chuck. It doesn't work. God made him to be him. God made you to be you.

Be so secure in your spiritual skin, that when the Bible says physical exercise profits you some, that's great, you should do it, but spiritual exercise, that's eternal. So, friends, don't get caught up in rules and regulations and pressure. I'm telling you, I already did all that. And disciplines are never yokes of bondage. Disciplines are never legalistic. Disciplines are things that I'm going to do this because I love it and it draws me closer to Jesus, him and I, and this is a good thing.

I'm going to set my alarm earlier. I know my body, my body's going to scream at four o'clock. When the alarm goes off at 4 am, my body's going to say what are we doing? Turn that thing off. But I look forward to the whole battle. Tomorrow morning, when that alarm goes off, I'm going to be confronted with this amazing exercise. Will I take my body and say get out of bed, get some coffee or get on the treadmill or go outside because we're going to read the Bible? Man, that's it, that is awesome, and God will take care of the rest. And listen. You'll build spiritual muscle and it's the best way. You don't want to try to accomplish in the flesh the things of the Spirit. So don't walk in the flesh, but walk in the Spirit and so fulfill the law of God's love in Christ Jesus.