Episode 66: Physical Fitness

Rural Church Podcast 2.0

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Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son with whom

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I am well pleased. He is honored and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

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The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be

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Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

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Jesus in a local, visible congregation. This is going to be the best episode we recorded all year.

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That's right. So far. Happy New Year, man.

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First time I've seen you this year. That's right. It's January 10th, and we've been off a little bit because of Christmas and such.

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Now, the listener is not getting this until maybe like the 24th,

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I think, of January. But how you been? That's how it is. That's how it is. I'm doing good. It's my kind of weather.

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And don't everybody hate me because I say that, but I like cold weather. Shout out to Russ Roden. Shout out to Russ Roden.

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Yes, sir. Welcome to the Rural Church Podcast. I'm your co -host, Allen Nelson.

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I am the pastor, one of the pastors, of Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas.

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With me is Eddie Ragsdale, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Marshall, Arkansas.

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Unfortunately. What? Unfortunately, the only part. I want to experience the blessing that you are experiencing with other brothers.

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I know, brother, but the way that came out, I was like, the pastor of First Baptist Marshall. And you're like, unfortunately.

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And it made it sound like. No, no, I love my church. I know, I know, I know, I know. But it was just funny.

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It was just funny. So today we are. We're kind of late to the game.

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Not really. I think this is a always relevant topic, but on the Twitter feeds and watch.

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Guess you can't call it Twitter anymore, but on the social media feeds. Every now and then it kind of crops up about exercise and the the idea of maybe a pastor needs to be ripped or something.

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But what we wanted to talk about today is physical fitness. We're going to start off talking about, you know, physical fitness in general and for the parishioner, if you will.

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And then we're going to wind up talking about pastors. And I hope that we have some helpful things to say.

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You know, the first thing that I'll start out with is a Bible verse. So how about that?

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First Timothy chapter four, verse eight. Now, I think in the King James. It says bodily exercise profited little.

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And so it could make you think. It could make you. Yeah, it could make you think of the wrong impression of the verse.

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It's rendered in the ESV this way. Bodily training is of some value.

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Bodily training is of some value. Now, the point of the verse is godliness is a value in every way.

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Of course, Paul's talking there primarily for for pastors, but I was for everyone.

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It doesn't matter who cares how fit your body is if you go to hell. Right. So bodily training, though, is of some value.

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Let's start off first. Eddie, just theologically. We hadn't really chatted much before this, but I'm going to toss you a softball,

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I think. Let's talk theologically. Why bodily fitness is even necessary in this world today?

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Well, I think the connection between our body and our soul and our spiritual life, those are not disconnected.

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It's not like they have they have no impact on one another. And so while a person can have all kinds of physical ailments and still be growing spiritually through that, we wouldn't want to imply that that a person physical problems mean a person is not spiritually healthy.

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The Lord very well may may grow a person through their physical, physical problems.

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That may be a source of sanctification. However, if our bodies are are in general working order, the better we're able to have the right diet, move our body, have have our body strong.

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That's going to allow us a good vehicle for all of the spiritual practices that are going to glorify the

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Lord. So I really think, you know, I'm even even thinking about this passage, you know, right before verse eight, the end of verse seven says, rather train yourself for godliness.

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And and, you know, even as you were first reading the verse, I was I was thinking of.

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Dr. Don Whitney's book on spiritual disciplines, and I was just thinking about, you know, when we think about the different spiritual disciplines, prayer,

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Bible intake, all of those, the point in doing those is not so that you can say

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I did my Bible reading or I prayed or I fasted or whatever.

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It's to do it for the purpose of godliness. And so I think for us as believers, we ought to be able to look at.

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Even the way that we manage our diet and we manage our bodies through exercise and physical movement, we ought to do that for the purpose of godliness.

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Yeah, that's really good, brother. I was actually just thinking in my mind, the answer

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I was thinking is we live in a fallen world. But yeah, you throw me a softball, you think. But yeah, but, you know,

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I was like, yeah, I was like, man, you ought to get a single with this, but you hit a home run. So yeah, but no, it's yeah.

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The reality, what I'm saying is our bodies and this is going to transition to what I'm about to say next, but our bodies are wasting away.

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We live in a fallen world. We live in a world where not only there is excess sugar in our foods, but also where we have the ungodly desire at time to consume too much sugar.

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And I'm just throwing that out there as an example. We live in a world where we have different metabolisms.

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I'm not a big I've never been a big proponent of the BMI, you know, the in that body mass index like.

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Yeah, but I just I've you know, there's some value in that. But I think that we're just all wired so differently, metabolism so differently.

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I don't think you're in sin if your BMI number doesn't match up. You know, I mean, you may be, but I don't think that that's necessarily true, you know.

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Right. But the other thing. So one one issue I want to talk about and I am so we're going to get to pastors.

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But right now we're just kind of talking about Christians in general, every person in general, of course.

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But specifically, we're talking about Christians because we've been born again and we desire to please the Lord. We should take care of our bodies at the same time.

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So we'll address this for a minute. We should not make our bodies an idol.

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And we can do that. So I got some big news for you, Eddie, and I want you to you're sitting down already.

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I want to make you aware of something. You are going to die.

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That's right. And there's nothing you can do about it. That's right.

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There's not a number of pills that you can take. There's not any kind of diet out there that you can do.

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There is nothing that you can do. You one day will cease to not exist entirely.

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But as far as your life on Earth goes, you and I. Our life will be over.

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I don't know the stats. I should have pulled it up. But the the aging industry or whatever, it's like billions of dollars every year.

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We're buying creams. We're buying pills. We're doing work to slow down or try to stop the aging process.

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But that's that's faulty. It's inevitable that we're going to age and we're going to die.

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So you have anything you want to say about the idolatry of fitness before we move on? Yeah.

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I mean, like you said, we have this inordinate attachment to youth.

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And we want to chase after it all the time. I mean, you see you see these people that maybe they're sick.

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They're 70, 80 years old and they're still trying to, you know, look like they're they're in their 30s.

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And not just not just with, you know, more extreme things like.

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Like maybe they're there, they've had plastic surgery or something like that. But even, you know, we we see these guys there.

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You know, I'm in my mid 40s and, you know, there are certain fashions that.

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That some folks are wearing that I'm not going to wear that. You know, the kids might be wearing something that I'm I'm not going to dress like that.

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I'm I'm just thought it would look when it would look stupid, too. I don't want to. Let's be honest. You're in boots and a hoodie right now.

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And that that is that's your uniform. Yeah. Yeah. I love I love this. This is my favorite time of year because I get to dress the way

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I really like. But but my point is just to say that, yes,

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I think we can make an idol out of really what the idol is more than it is.

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I think even the it's more the idol is what other people think about us.

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And we can do that with. Listen, as pastors, let's let's just be real honest.

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We can do that with seeking praise for our preaching. You know, we want people to say, man, that was a good job.

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But you can also you want you want people to look at you and say, oh, man, he's a you know, he's fit or he or he's attractive or something.

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And honestly, even one of the dangers is we see so much rampant, even sexual immorality attached to the pulpit.

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And I think some of these sometimes guys are even there. There may be even desiring that kind of attractiveness from the the the people that that are in front of them.

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It's very grotesque even at that point. Sure. Sure. So let me let me say this for for the average

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Christian. You probably the average person is general. Listen to this. You probably can be eating better and you probably can be exercising more if you're not exercising at all.

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You ought to be doing something. And the reason is not because for for most

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Americans anyway, we live a very sedentary life. We're, you know, compared to ages past.

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We could talk more about pastors for sure. But I've just general statement. Don't don't take this to be.

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There are guys out there that you're waking up for to get to work. You have a long workday, physical labor all day.

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You get back in at night, you know, just don't have time to understand. There's exceptions and stuff.

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But for most people listening, men or women, you probably can be exercising more.

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You probably can be eating better. The way that you keep that from idolatry is to remember

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God gave us sugar, too. You know, we can enjoy sugar to the glory of God.

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We can enjoy a piece of cake or ice cream or such to the glory of God.

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There are seasons in the Christian life for feasting to the glory of God.

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At the same time, the reason that we want to be in control of our bodies is because we want to have victory over the flesh.

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We want to mortify the deeds of the flesh. We do not want our God to be our bellies.

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We want to be able. It's not about we know that we're going to die, but it's about extending our life, if you will.

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Yes, God's appointed our days, but he also he ordains the ends and the means.

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And so we're to be good stewards of our body so that we can live in this body as long as we can.

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Specifically now listen to this for the glory of God. Like if you're just wanting to live long because you there's there's more ungodliness in the world that you want to enjoy.

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You have the wrong motivation or if you just want to walk down the street and people look at your body or whatever and be amazed.

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That's idolatry. But we should be good. There is value. So the text first Timothy four, eight, there is value in taking care of our bodies and Christians should take care of our bodies.

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We should think about what we eat. We should think about physical exercise.

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We should be doing these things. Anything else you want to say to that? Yeah. And I think along that the line of what you were saying there, we want to be reminded that we're you and I are not coming out here and we're saying everybody.

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I mean, I know I know that you you've been running and praise the Lord, brother. I'm probably not going to join you.

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I just have zero desire to run. We have a brother in our church who runs and praise the

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Lord. But I just have no desire to do that. We're not coming and saying everybody has to become a runner or everybody has to lift weights or everybody has to do this or that.

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Or, you know, P90X or whatever the thing is. And we're not coming out and saying everybody, if you're going to be a good

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Christian, you got to be a vegan or vegetarian. Or do keto or do paleo or whatever.

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We're not we're not prescribing any of that. We're simply saying that we ought to desire to eat well, to steward our bodies well, by by fueling our bodies with good food.

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I would say not as a law, but simply the more processed food is, it's the less good for you.

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It's probably going to be the closer it is to the way the Lord gave it to us. Probably the better, the fresher the food, the then the probably the better it's going to be.

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But but we have freedom, right? The Lord made all foods green. We have freedom in that.

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And then when it comes to exercise. Regardless of what program a person might decide to use.

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All we're saying is we need to move our bodies because God gave us bodies that could move.

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And it's better for them. And actually, it's not just physically better for us. But I found, you know, if I get up and I go walk, it clears my mind.

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It helps me think better. It can even help me sometimes to pray better. Just to move my body.

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And so it's not it's kind of like where I started earlier. It's we want to remember that this is not it's not like what we do physically is over here.

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And then the spiritual stuff, it's over here separate. That's the way the Gnostics thought that that's not the way a biblical a biblical believer thinks.

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Yeah, that's good, brother. And, you know, I think there are some practical things. Now, we're going to get to pastor.

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So buckle your seatbelt. But right now, there are some practical things that we can do while we exercise.

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It's even benefit. So I've kind of stopped this. I got to figure out how to get back on. So I was like running with my phone and I was listening to books and sermons and podcasts.

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Well, I stopped back. I'm just running with my watch. I figured out how to just do that. The bad thing is

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I've tried to run faster. And the bad thing is that I've lost that kind of listening.

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But there's like with technology. They what I'm saying is like you might say, well, there's so much. There's only so much time you have.

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Well, with exercise, sometimes you can double up. Sometimes you can get on, say, audible or a podcast or a sermon, sermon, audio.

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And you can. Double up, you can exercise your physical body while also exercising your soul, if you will.

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And so I think that's I think that's important. If you're doing no exercise.

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And no consideration of your diet, I really encourage you to search the scriptures to get with the

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Lord, to get with brothers and sisters in your church and consider some changes, you know, because this isn't about like this isn't about a program.

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It's really just about habits and lifestyle changes.

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You know, we're not we've we've both done keto before. We've both done, you know, various. But but that's not what this episode about.

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We're not talking about a program. We're just talking about a general rule like physical fitness should be a thing in the church.

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It should be OK. Now, again, there are people we have a brother, a dear brother in our church who comes in on a walker, literally drags himself in to come to church.

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Faithful brother. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, though, his life should be an indictment on those of us who have the ability to do things.

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And we're not, you know. So, you know, consider those things.

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Bodily exercise is of some value. It's in as a holistic approach to godliness.

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It should it should be under the grand category of I want to be a godly person. Underneath that category is not just prayer, as we've talked about, not just Bible reading, not just, you know, these quote unquote spiritual disciplines that are often used, but also

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I want to take care of my physical well -being. Anything else you want to add to that?

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No, I think that's good. Let's let's let's talk with our brothers now.

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Let's talk about pastors. And this is sensitive. A pastor sometimes, sadly, pastors sometimes are the easily most easily offended because it's just hard.

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It's hard to be a pastor. You know, it's hard to hear when you're doing something wrong. It's hard to be convicted or whatever.

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But let me just give some general statements and you add in just as a general statement. I'm talking about American pastors as a general statement.

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We are too fat. Is that too blunt? No, no.

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Well, I mean, just a general statement. Well, what is the stereotype of what is the stereotype of a

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Southern? But let's just talk about Southern Baptists. So maybe maybe the Presbyterians and the

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Assemblies of God, different groups like won't be bad at us. But the Southern Baptists, what's the stereotype?

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Right. Overweight eats too much fried chicken at the potlucks kind of a thing.

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And can I say. We've been guilty as charged. Yeah, we've all been guilty.

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But I'm saying the stereotype doesn't come out of nothing. That's right.

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Yeah. And again, we're just speaking generally. So a couple of things.

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I'm going to read some quotes in just a minute from pastoral theology.

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Do you have that by Albert Martin? I do not. So if I could encourage you with one, you know,

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I know you like we only have so much time to read so much money to invest. If I can encourage pastors with one set to invest in this year, it would be the three volume work by Al Martin on pastoral theology.

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Probably the best place to get it is Reformation Heritage Books. They usually have the best price on something like that.

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But Al Martin and pastoral theology. And his first book is volume is the man of God, his calling and godly life.

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I'll read a couple of quotes out of that in just a minute. But one of the things that we need to think about as pastors.

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So one, we want to be physically fit. Again, we're not saying that, you know, you're ripping out of your suit and tie every

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Sunday because you're. And again, by the way, is not just the everyday Christian that can struggle with the idolatry of fitness.

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Pastors can, too. Yeah. And pastors, you better hold your fitness loosely. Like if you're forsaking other things in order to stay in shape, then you've got to reprioritize.

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And in your body, you may not need to look like an Olympic athlete. Right. Like that's not what we're saying.

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You just may need to be in better shape than you are. Because, well, yeah, if your view is

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I've got to lift weights every day. Whether or not to read the Bible, well, that's wrong.

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That's backwards. Yeah, I can't I can't visit Sweet Sister so -and -so today because I've I've got to ride my bike or whatever.

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Like, OK, you've got to reprioritize like there might be days or weeks even that your.

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Physical fitness regimen is completely thrown off course because you have other things that are more important.

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Right. But you need to be physically fit, not only because your body is a temple and longevity of life for yourself, but also to model that you have self -control, that you have discipline.

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You model to your people, I have the discipline and self -control of what it looks like to be to be a pastor.

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And in extreme cases, these would be disqualifying. Since I'm not please don't misunderstand,

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I'm not saying if your waistline is a certain amount that you're disqualified, that's not what

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I'm saying at all. I'm just saying these general principles about taking care of our bodies, being good stewards of what

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God has given us. And again, there's so many different things that that may look like.

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That may just look like you doing some push ups and sit ups every day. It may look like you having a gym membership and lifting weights.

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Maybe you're riding a bike. Maybe you're jogging. Maybe you're you're riding a horse, you know, or even as simple as just a walk.

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You know, we have a friend, a pastor friend who is his practice is to is to go to public places and and walk and just walk a circuit, you know.

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Yeah. And I'm like, man, that's good. You know, that's that's that's that's better.

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That's better than not moving your body. I mean, we're just talking about we're not we're talking about exercise in terms of strategically moving your body.

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Not necessarily saying it has to be this specific way. That's right. And and and also understand, like we have all these different body types and different metabolism rates and all these things.

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So it's not about being a certain size, but there are people. Go ahead.

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Well, just along that different body types. I was discussing this last night with a brother in our church, and he is the guy that I mentioned who runs.

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He runs a lot. But just last night we were talking about he had joined the gym here in town.

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And I said, well, I kind of said, I'm surprised that you joined the gym. I mean, you you run all the time.

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He said, well, he said, I'm feeling kind of weak, though, because all I ever do is run and burn calories, but not really building muscle.

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And his kids wanted to join the gym, so they kind of doing it as a family and stuff.

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And and that's great. That's great. Yeah. And as a general principle, do whatever is whatever is going to be good for your body.

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You know, that's right. As a general principle as well, men should be strong. Men, men should be protectors.

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You know, we live in such a world today that that almost doesn't seem what a protector, you know.

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But look at the events in our world today and consider whether or not you should be a strong protector for your family, for your neighbors.

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This is it's just the reality that we should mean as a general principle, we should we should be strong and we should work to be strong again.

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We could qualify this to death. We're not saying, you know, somebody could say, well, what about this situation?

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OK, but these this is just it's just true. Let me let me get you.

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I told you I was going to get you a couple of quotes. Let me read you a couple of quotes from this pastoral theology from Al Martin.

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One. He says, this is not a matter of seeking to cultivate body worship.

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I've never been one that gets an endorphin high with my exercise regimen. I put my physical exercise in the category of praying.

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It is an activity in which to engage, whether I feel like it or not. When it's time to pray, you go to pray.

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When it's time to read your Bible, you read your Bible. When it's time to put on your exercise clothing and footwear, you put them on and go down to your cellar and get on the treadmill or make your way to the local

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YMCA or health club or off to the local park with its bike and walking trails.

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You do it because you're persuaded you ought to do it. You do this because you're persuaded from the word of God that it is your duty.

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You do not want to bloody your conscience by not doing it, since you believe the words of James, who said, so ever so whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him, it is sin.

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Anything you want to say there? And I got a he kind of goes on here. I think that is really good.

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And that that even. Just as he was mentioning those like you like we've already said, we can double some of those up like it's possible.

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It's possible to say, hey, when I'm going, like you said, you're going on a run, but you can also listen to this sermon or this podcast so you can you can redeem that time in two ways.

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Or it's possible that he mentions their prayer time. What's it's possible sometimes we can be praying and walking at the same time.

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My body's working. And actually, that's helping me think more clearly about what

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I want to say to the Lord. I mean, I mean, think about even I don't know about you, but oftentimes if I'm on the phone with somebody.

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Somebody calls me, I'm going to get up and walk around the church because I actually think better walking than I do just sitting here.

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So I'll be well, we can talk to the Lord that way or even that you've got a conversation you need to have with a with another brother or somebody over the phone.

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Well, you don't have to be necessarily sitting at your desk to have that conversation. So, yeah, that's good in your body, even in that even, you know, if you're if right now you're at zero exercise, even just moving to say,

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OK, I'm committing to 10 minutes a day to walking. That's a great move in the right direction.

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Maybe it's not the be all end all, but it's a great move. He goes on to say over the years, I've found great spiritual profit in using the central thought of Romans 12 one as the basis of a prayer.

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I pray when I'm about to begin my exercise regimen, I say something to the Lord along the following lines.

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Gracious God, I come once more to offer up my body to you as a living sacrifice.

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Bless this regimen of exercise to contribute to my overall health and strength.

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Since this body destined for the grave is the only body in which I will serve you until the resurrection.

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I want to serve you as well as I can with as much vigor and strength as I can for as long as I can.

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And to this end, I pray that you will bless this practical endeavor to attain that goal.

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I think that's a good a good prayer. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is the gift that God has given us is this body.

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And I think going back to something else we said earlier, our culture wants to make us envy a certain type of body that maybe the

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Lord didn't give you. We need to fight against that. And one of the ways that we fight against that is by being thankful for the body that the

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Lord did give us and in treating it properly. Don't idolize it, but treat it properly.

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Martin, one more quote. He says, I know of no truth that influences me more profoundly at the practical level of my own thinking and my practice than the reality that I am a blood bought, that I am blood bought property.

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This body is the very temple and sanctuary of God, the Holy Spirit. I just seek to do all within my power to keep this temple in good order, that God may be glorified and that his purposes will be accomplished through me.

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So I think that goes exactly along the lines of what you were saying, brother. And that is if you're if so, if your motivation is you're looking at other people and you're like, man,

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I want to look like that and I want people to be in awe and I want, you know, these. Well, you're missing it.

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This is about like everything else in our life. The glory of God. God has given me this body.

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I want to use this body to the best of my ability. It's kind of like the parable of the talents and each person is when it comes to physical fitness.

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You've been given various talents, two talents, five talents, 10 talents, whatever the case may be. Whatever talents you've been given, because for some people, honestly, it seems like physical fitness is just easy.

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It's like, wow, you know, well, maybe you haven't been given that number of talents.

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I don't feel like I have. But the talents I have been given, I want to use.

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I don't want to just bury him like, well, I'm going to die anyway. I was eating, drinking. Tomorrow we die.

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No, the talents I have been given. I want to use those well, steward them well for ultimately the glory of God.

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This is my body. It's the only body I'm going to have. And I want to use this body to the best of my ability.

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And I have failed in that in in my life. And but we all have.

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We go to the Lord again for grace and we take seriously as pastors this idea of keeping our bodies within reason to to a certain amount of physical fitness.

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Yeah. And I'll tell you personally, this this kind of my personal anecdote on this is it's less it's less about what you're going to look like, brothers.

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It's less about what you're going to look like when you. Figure out what works for you as far as the healthiest way for you to eat and to move your body, you will feel better.

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The motivation really ought to be that your body is going to you're going to feel better and you're going to be more able to live for the glory of God and for godliness.

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That's why you should care about it. Not so much because you're going to you're going to be two gene sizes smaller and you'll look better in the pulpit.

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You know, preaching even you, you could preach better, you can have more endurance, your lung capacity is better.

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You know, I was like, right. There's all these. It's like God knows what he's doing with making the human body.

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You mentioned sugar earlier. So this is not an attack on sugar. However, the last couple of months from the from middle of October through the end of the year, this last year,

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I got completely off of the way that I normally eat, which is pretty low sugar, you know, and I was eating a lot of sugar.

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And I'll just tell you, I don't think that my thinking was as clear those last couple of months.

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And I don't think that that I don't feel like I was speaking as well, even in the pulpit.

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Over those last couple of months, just because my brain was foggy, foggier than it is when

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I'm eating the way that I normally do. Yeah, well, I hope this has been helpful.

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You know, it's not been our some people listening this probably need to be convicted by the

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Holy Spirit, though. That's not our desire. We don't want to convict you. If the Holy Spirit convicts you, then our encouragement is to go again to the

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God of all grace, whether you're a lay person, a man or a woman, or whether you're a church member.

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Or sorry, a pastor, a man, obviously, then go trust the

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Lord, repent of any areas you need to repent and and ask the Lord's help.

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If the Holy Spirit is for our sanctification, then he'll be for our desire to figure out how we can incorporate moving our body and eating better.

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So don't make an idol of it, but seek to use your steward your body well and remember that there is some value in in physical exercise.

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Yeah, you know, even to kind of go back to where we originally started there in First Timothy four, kind of putting that in context, as we said, we're not prescribing a certain diet or way of eating.

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Even we've mentioned sugar a couple of times. But like you said, you know, if you want to have a bowl of ice cream, have a bowl of ice cream to the glory of God.

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Even in this text in First Timothy four, Paul is speaking to Timothy here about those who are liars, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God has created to be received with Thanksgiving.

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So we're not requiring abstinence from any good thing that the Lord has given us.

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We're just saying all of those good things that the Lord has given us come with a need for us to be self -controlled.

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And I love I love when we look at the work of the spirit and life of believer, the fruit of the spirit is self -control.

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And so if we're really walking in in the spirit, then we're going to have self -control, not just over our spiritual practices, but over every part of our life.

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For pastors, model that. So I'll close with this Hebrews 12 one. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

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And I would say that there are many pastors, myself included, myself included, that not only do they need to lay aside every weight, but they need to lay aside some weight off their body in order to better run the race that God has set before us.

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Christ is worthy. We can do this without making it an idol and we can encourage one another in it.

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We're not making a new law or anything like that. Let's take care of our bodies that God has given us for his glory, that we may better serve him and his church.

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You got anything else? I actually do want to throw in one last thing. Yeah, there's one other way, especially

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I would say to pastors, if you're struggling to make time, maybe to be with some of the guys in your church or something like that, or if you've got sons, exercise is a great time for guys to get together.

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I mean, I used to work out with, they weren't even guys in my church. They were just guys here in town. But for a few years there, we worked out together.

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We were lifting weights together. That can even be another way that you can redeem that time.

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You say, man, I don't really have time to get together with this couple of brothers in the church. Well, maybe you guys could, you know, two or three times a week, you could hit the weights together.

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You're getting the exercise at the same time that you're getting that spiritual fellowship. And you make kinds of ways that you can do more than one thing at a time.

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And you may encourage others. They might be thinking the same thing, but now you can all help each other. That's what the local church is about and encouraging each other towards this godly principle.

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Well, I hope that's been helpful to you. I appreciate you listening to this episode of the Rural Church Podcast.

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Eddie, sign us off. See you guys next week. If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what

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God's doing. This is His work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the hoemas, the masterpiece of God.