Episode 66: Physical Fitness

To the Ruled Church podcast.

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.

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And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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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Christ is king.

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You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and

repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing

church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

This is gonna be the best episode we recorded all year.

That's right.

So far.

Happy New Year, man.

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.

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

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.

Yes, sir.

Welcome to the Rural Church Podcast.

I'm your co -host, Alan Nelson.

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

Arkansas.

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

Marshall, Arkansas.

And - What?

Unfortunately, the only part, the only part.

I don't wanna be, I want to have, I want to experience the blessing that you are

experiencing with other brothers.

I know, brother, but the way that came out, I was like the pastor of First Baptist Marshall.

And you're like, unfortunately.

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.

It was just funny.

Yeah, yeah.

So today we are, we're kind of late to the game.

Not really.

I think this is a always relevant topic.

But on the Twitter feeds, and watch, I 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 idea of maybe a pastor needs to be ripped or something.

But what we wanted to talk about today is physical fitness.

We're gonna start off talking about, you know, physical fitness in general and for the

parishioner, if you will.

And then we're gonna wind up talking about pastors.

And I hope that we have some helpful things to say.

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

So how about that?

First Timothy chapter four, verse eight.

Now, I think in the King James, it says bodily exercise profiteth

little.

And so it could make you think, it could make you -.

Not very important.

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

It's rendered in the ESV this way.

Bodily training is of some value.

Bodily training is of some value.

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

Of course, Paul's talking there primarily for pastors, but

obviously for everyone.

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.

Let's start off first, Eddie, just theologically.

We hadn't really chatted much before this, but I'm gonna toss you a softball, I think.

Let's talk theologically why bodily fitness is even

necessary in this world today.

Well, I think the connection between our body and our soul

and our spiritual life, those are not disconnected.

It's not like 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 wanna imply that a person, physical problems

mean a person's not spiritually healthy.

The Lord very well may grow a person through their

physical problems.

That may be a source of sanctification.

However, if our bodies are in

general working order, the better we're able to

have the right diet, move our body, have our body strong,

that's gonna allow us a good vehicle for all of the

spiritual practices that are gonna glorify the Lord.

So I really think, I'm even thinking about this passage.

Right before verse eight, the end of verse seven says, "'Rather train yourself for godliness.'".

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

Don Williams, Whitney's book on spiritual disciplines.

And I was just thinking about, when we think about the different spiritual disciplines, prayer,

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

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

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 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.

Yeah, that was really good, brother.

I was actually just thinking.

In my mind, the answer I was thinking is we live in a fallen world.

But -.

Yeah, you throw me a softball, you think, but.

Yeah, but no, 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, the reality, what I'm saying is our bodies, and this is

gonna transition to what I'm about to say next, but our bodies are wasting away.

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.

And I'm just throwing that out there as an example.

We live in a world where we have different metabolisms.

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

Yeah.

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

differently, metabolism so differently.

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?

Right.

But the other thing, so one issue I wanna talk about, and I am, so we're gonna get to pastors, but

right now we're just kind of talking about Christians in general, every person in general, of course, 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, so we'll address this for a minute, we should not make our

bodies an idol, and we can do that.

So I got some big news for you, Eddie, and I want you to, you're sitting down already, but I wanted to

make you aware of something.

You are going to die.

That's right.

And there's nothing you can do about it.

That's right.

There's not a number of pills that you can take.

There's not any kind of diet out there that you can do.

There is nothing that you can do.

You one day will cease to, not exist entirely, but

as far as your life on earth goes, you and I, our life will be over.

I don't know the stats, I should have pulled it up, but the aging industry or whatever,

it's like billions of dollars.

Every year we're buying creams, we're buying pills, we're doing work to

slow down or try to stop the aging process, but

that's faulty.

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

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

Yeah, I mean, like you said, we have this inordinate

attachment to youth and we want to chase after it all the time.

I mean, you see these people that maybe they're 60, they're 70, 80 years

old, and they're still trying to look like they're in their 30s.

And not just with more extreme things

like maybe they've had plastic surgery or

something like that.

But even, we see these guys, I'm in my mid 40s,

and there are certain fashions that some folks are wearing

that I'm not going to wear that.

The kids might be wearing something that I'm not going to dress like that.

I'm just thought it would look, one, it would look stupid, two, I don't want to.

Let's be honest, you're in boots and a hoodie right now.

And that is, that's your uniform.

Yeah, I love, this is my favorite time of year because I get to dress the way I really like to dress.

But my point is just to say that, yes, I think we can make an idol out of really

what the idol is more than it is, I think even the physical, it's more,

the idol is what other people think about us.

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

We can do that with seeking praise for our preaching.

We want people to say, man, that was a good job.

But you can also, you want people to look at you and say, oh man, he's a,

he's fit or he's attractive or something.

And honestly, even one of the dangers is we see so much rampant, even sexual

immorality attached to the pulpit.

And I think some of these, sometimes guys are even, they're maybe even

desiring that kind of attractiveness from the people

that are in front of them.

It's very grotesque even at that point.

Sure, sure.

So let me say this, for the average Christian, you probably,

the average person, just general, listen to this, you probably can be eating better and you probably can

be exercising more.

If you're not exercising at all, you ought to be doing something.

And the reason is not because, for most Americans anyway, we live

a very sedentary life.

We're, you know, compared to ages past.

We could talk more about pastors for sure, but I've just general statement.

Don't take this to be, there are guys out there that you're waking up at four to get to work.

You have a long workday, physical labor all

day.

You get back in at night, you know, just don't have time.

So understand there's exceptions and stuff.

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

more.

You probably can be eating better.

The way that you keep that from idolatry is to remember God gave us sugar too.

We can enjoy sugar to the glory of God.

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

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

At the same time, the reason that we wanna be in control of our bodies is because we wanna

have victory over the flesh.

We wanna mortify the deeds of the flesh.

We do not want our God to be our bellies.

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.

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

means.

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

Specifically, now listen to this, for the glory of God.

Like if you're just wanting to live long because there's more ungodliness in the world that you wanna enjoy,

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,

that's idolatry, but we should be good stewards.

There is value.

So the text, 1 Timothy 4, 8, there is value in taking care of our

bodies and Christians should take care of our bodies.

We should think about what we eat.

We should think about physical exercise.

We should be doing these things.

Anything else you wanna say to that?

Yeah, and I think along that, the line of what you were saying there, we

wanna be reminded that you and I are not coming out here and we're saying everybody, I mean,

I know that you've been running and praise the Lord, brother.

I'm probably not gonna join you.

I just have zero desire to run.

We have a brother in our church who runs and praise the Lord, but I just have no desire to do that.

But 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 or P90X or whatever the thing is.

And we're not coming out and saying everybody,.

If you're gonna be a good Christian,.

You gotta be a vegan or vegetarian.

No, whoa.

Or do keto or do paleo or whatever.

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 fueling our bodies with good

food.

I would say not as a law, but simply the more

processed food is, it's the less good for you it's probably gonna be.

The closer it is to the way the Lord gave it to us, probably the better, the fresher the food,

then probably the better it's gonna be.

But we have freedom, right?

The Lord made all foods green.

We have freedom in that.

And then when it comes to exercise, regardless of what program a

person might decide to use, all we're saying is we need to move our bodies because God gave us bodies that

could move and it's better for them.

And actually it's not just physically better for us, but I found, if I

get up and I go walk, it clears my mind, it helps me think better.

It can even help me sometimes to pray better, just to move my body.

And so it's not, it's kind of like where I started earlier.

We wanna remember that this is not, it's not like what we do physically is over here and then

the spiritual stuff, it's over here separate.

That's the way the Gnostics thought.

That's not the way a biblical believer thinks.

Yeah, that's good, brother.

And I think there's some practical things.

Now we're gonna get to pastors, so buckle your seatbelt.

But right now there are some practical things that we can do

while we exercise that's even benefit.

So I've kind of stopped this.

I gotta 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.

Well, I stopped that, I'm just running with my watch.

I figured out how to just do that.

The bad thing is, so I've tried to run faster and the bad thing is that I've

lost that kind of listening.

But there's, like with technology today, what I'm saying is like, you might say, well, there's so much, there's only so much

time you have.

Well, with exercise, sometimes you can double up.

Sometimes you can get on say Audible or a podcast or a sermon,

sermon audio, and you can double up.

You can exercise your physical body while also exercising your soul, if you will.

And so I think that's important.

If you're doing no exercise and no consideration of your

diet, I really encourage you to search the scriptures to get with the Lord, to get with brothers and sisters in your

church and consider some changes.

Cause this isn't about like, this isn't about a program.

It's really just about habits and lifestyle changes.

We're not, we've both done keto before.

We've both done various, but that's not what this episode about.

We're not talking about a program.

We're just talking about as a general rule, like physical fitness should be a thing in the church.

It should be okay.

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.

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 and we're not, you know?

So, you know, consider those things.

Bodily exercise is of some value.

It's, and as a holistic approach to godliness, it should be

under the grand category of I wanna 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 I wanna take care

of my physical wellbeing.

Anything else you wanna add to that?

No, I think that's good.

Let's talk with our brothers now.

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.

It's hard to be a pastor, you know?

And it's hard to hear when you're doing something wrong.

It's hard to be convicted or whatever, 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, we are too fat.

Is that too blunt?

No, no.

Well, I mean, even the stereotype.

Just a general statement.

Well, what is the stereotype of a, what is the stereotype of

a Southern Baptist?

Let's just talk about Southern Baptists.

So maybe the Presbyterians and the Assemblies of God and different groups won't be bad at us.

But the Southern Baptist, what's the stereotype?

Right, overweight, eats too much fried chicken at the Potlucks kind of a thing.

And can I say, I've been guilty as charged.

We've all been, yeah, we've all been guilty.

That's just, but I'm saying the stereotype doesn't come out of nothing.

That's right, yeah.

And again, we're just speaking generally.

What it does, so a couple of things.

I'm gonna read some quotes in just a minute from Pastoral Theology.

Do you have that by Albert Martin?

I do not.

So if I could encourage you with one, you know, 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.

Probably the best place to get it is Reformation Heritage Books.

They usually have the best price on something like that.

But Al Martin and Pastoral Theology.

And his first book is, volume, is The Man of God.

His Calling and Godly Life.

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,

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 Sunday.

And again, by the way, it's not just the everyday Christian that can struggle with the idolatry of fitness.

Pastors can too.

Yep.

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.

And in your body, you may not need to look like an Olympic athlete, right?

Like, that's not what we're saying.

You just may need to be in better shape than you are.

Right, well, yeah, if your view is, I've got to lift weights every day, whether or not I read the

Bible, well, that's wrong, that's backwards.

Yeah, I can't visit Sweet Sister So -and -so today because I've got to

ride my bike or whatever.

Like, okay, you've got to reprioritize.

Like there might be days or weeks even that your physical fitness regimen

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

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.

You model to your people, I have the discipline and self -control of what it

looks like to be a pastor.

And in extreme cases, these would be disqualifying sins.

And I'm not, please don't misunderstand.

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

That's not what I'm saying at all.

I'm just saying these general principles about taking care of our bodies, being good

stewards of what God has given us.

And again, there's so many different things that that may look like.

That may just look like you doing some pushups and sit -ups every day.

It may look like you having a gym membership and lifting weights.

Maybe you're riding a bike.

Maybe you're jogging.

Maybe you're riding a horse.

Or even as simple as just a walk.

We have a friend, a pastor friend, who his practice is to

go to public places and walk and just walk a circuit.

And I'm like, man, that's good.

You know, that's better than not moving your body.

I mean, we're just talking about, we're talking about exercise in terms of strategically moving your

body, not necessarily saying it has to be this specific way.

That's right.

And also understand like we have all these different body types and different metabolism rates and all these things.

So it's not about being a certain size.

But there are people...

Go ahead.

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.

He runs a lot.

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

And I said, well, I was kind of said, I'm surprised that you joined the gym.

I mean, you run all the time.

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.

And his kids wanted to join the gym.

So they kind of doing it as a family and stuff.

And that's great.

That's great.

Yeah.

And as a general principle...

So do whatever's gonna be good for your body.

That's right.

As a general principle as well, men should be strong.

Men should be protectors.

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

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.

This is just the reality that we should, men as a general principle, we should be strong

and we should work to be strong.

Again, we could qualify this to death.

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

Okay.

But this is just, it's just true.

Let me get you...

I told you I was gonna get you a couple of quotes.

Let me read you a couple of quotes from this pastoral theology from Al Martin.

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

I've never been one that gets an endorphin high with my exercise regimen.

I put my physical exercise in the category of praying.

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.

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 YMCA or health club or off to the local park with its

bike and walking trails.

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.

You do not want to bloody your conscience by not doing it since you believe the words of James who said,

so whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him, it is sin.

Anything you wanna say there?

And I got, he kind of goes on here.

I think that is really good.

And that even, just as he was mentioning those, like we've

already said, we can double some of those up like it's possible.

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 redeem that time in two ways.

Or it's possible that he mentions there a prayer time.

Well, it's possible sometimes we can be praying and walking at the same time.

My body's working and actually that's helping me think more clearly about what I wanna say to the Lord.

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

somebody calls me, I'm gonna get up and walk around the church because I actually think better walking

than I do just sitting here.

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 another brother or somebody

over the phone.

Well, you don't have to be necessarily sitting at your desk to have that conversation.

So you can be moving your body even in that.

Even if right now you're at zero exercise, even just moving to say, okay,

I'm committing to 10 minutes a day to walking.

That's a great move in the right direction.

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 I pray when I'm about to begin my exercise regimen.

I say something to the Lord along the following lines.

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

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

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

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.

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

goal.

I think that's a good prayer.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, this is the gift that God has given us is this body.

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 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 Lord did give us

and treating it properly.

Don't idolize it, but treat it properly.

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 blood -bought property.

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.

So I think that goes exactly along the lines of what you were saying, brother.

And that is, if so, if your motivation is you're looking at other people and you're like, man, I wanna look like that.

And I want people to be in awe and I want these, well, you're missing it.

This is about like everything else in our life, the glory of God.

God has given me this body.

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, 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.

It's like, wow, you know?

Well, maybe you haven't been given that number of talents.

I don't feel like I have, but the talents I have been given, I want to use, I don't wanna just bury them.

Like, well, I'm gonna die anyway.

Might as eat, eat and drink, tomorrow we die.

No, the talents I have been given, I want to use those well, steward them

well for ultimately the glory of God.

This is my body.

It's the only body I'm gonna have.

And I wanna use this body to the best of my ability.

And I have failed in that, in my life.

But we all have, we go to the Lord again for grace and we take seriously as pastors,

this idea of keeping our bodies within reason to a certain amount of

physical fitness.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you, this is kind of my personal anecdote on this,

is it's less about what you're gonna look like, brothers.

It's less about what you're gonna 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.

The motivation really ought to be that your body's gonna, you're gonna feel better and you're

gonna be more able to live for the glory of God and for godliness.

That's why you should care about it.

Not so much because you're gonna be two jean sizes smaller and you'll look better

in the pulpit.

You know, preaching even, you can preach better.

You can have more endurance.

Your lung capacity is better.

You know, it's like God knows what he's doing with making the human body.

You mentioned sugar earlier.

So this is not an attack on sugar.

However, the last couple of months from middle of October through the

end of the year, this last year, 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.

And I'll just tell you, I don't think that my thinking was as clear those

last couple of months.

And I don't think that, that I don't feel like I was speaking as well

even in the pulpit over those last couple of months just because my brain was foggy,

foggier than it is when I'm eating the way than I normally do.

Yeah.

Well, I hope this has been helpful.

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

though that's not our desire.

We don't wanna convict you.

If the Holy Spirit convicts you, then our encouragement is to go again to the God of all grace,

whether you're a lay person, a man or a woman, or whether you're a church member,

or sorry, a pastor, a man, obviously.

Then go, trust the Lord, repent of any areas you need to repent, and

ask the Lord's help.

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.

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 physical exercise.

Yeah, you know, even to kind of go back to where we originally started there in 1 Timothy 4, kind of

putting that in context, as we said, we're not prescribing a certain diet or way of

eating.

Even we've mentioned sugar a couple of times, but like you said, you know, if you wanna have

a bowl of ice cream, have a bowl of ice cream to the glory of God.

Even in this text in 1 Timothy 4, 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.

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

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.

And I love when we look at the work of the Spirit in the life of a believer, the fruit of

the Spirit is self -control.

And so if we're really walking in the Spirit, then we're gonna have self -control, not just

over our spiritual practices, but over every part of our life.

For pastors, model that.

So I'll close with this, Hebrews 12, 1.

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.

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.

Christ is worthy.

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

You got anything else?

I actually do wanna throw in one last thing.

There's one other way, especially 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.

So, 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.

We were lifting weights together.

That can even be another way that you can redeem that time.

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, two or three times a week, you could hit the weights together.

You're getting the exercise at the same time that you're getting that spiritual fellowship.

And you make tons of ways that you can do more than one thing at a time.

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 encourage each other towards this Godly principle.

So, well, I hope that's been helpful to you.

I appreciate you listening to this episode of the Rural Church Podcast.

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 God's

doing.

This is his work.

If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the toimos, the masterpiece of

God.

How are you going to respond?