Healthy Lifestyle - Spiritually Fit

Pastor Phillips’ Sermon

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today we talk about being spiritually fit but, for a moment, let’s consider it from a physical perspective. If you’re looking to participate in the Hy-Vee Triathlon or if you’re looking to just get back into shape and you want to enter into a program, the first thing you must do is visit your doctor and have a physical and get checked out just to see if you’re up for the challenge. Well, you could just kind of look in the mirror and say, “That’s pretty good. You know, that’s pretty good, not too bad.” Or you could step on the scale or maybe you don’t want to do that but you could kind of evaluate yourself and come up with some information. You could ask your spouse how you look in these clothes. But the bottom line is if you go to an expert and have a physical, then you’ll get some information that will be actually helpful. You’ll find out what your blood pressure is, what your cholesterol is. You’ll find out if everything’s in order. And it’s not the most wonderful experience to have a physical but it’s very helpful for our health.

But what do we do to assess our spiritual fitness? How do we know if we are spiritually up for the challenges of this life, the tasks of dealing with a struggling economy and things like that? How do we know if we’re spiritually fit? Well, if we determine by a physical for our physical fitness, then I think it would be appropriate that we call the assessment of our spirituality a spiritual, new meaning, old word. I just created it, go with me.

We’re going to have a spiritual today. We’re all going to get a spiritual done. Don’t get nervous now. You don’t have to turn your head and cough or anything like that. It’s all above board. We’re just going to ask some questions about your spiritual life. We’re going to go through an assessment process.

But before we begin, we really have to get started with the very first subject. Are you spiritually alive? It wouldn’t make any sense for us once we are deceased to go for a physical. And it’s the same thing spiritually. How can we assess ourselves spiritually if we’re not yet alive spiritually?

It kind of reminds me of a conversation earlier this week. People were discussing what they wanted people to say when their days had come to an end and they were lying there in the casket, what did they want people to say? One man said, “I would like people to look at me and say, ‘He was a good father. He worked hard. He provided for his family. He was faithful to his wife,’ on and on.” And a woman said, “I would like my children to look at me and say, ‘She was a good mother. She made good meals. She took care of us. She sacrificed for us. She worked so hard to help our home and help us through school.’” Then I chimed in, “Well, if I was lying there in the casket, I’d like somebody to say, ‘Hey, look, he’s moving.’”

We have to be spiritually alive in order to assess our spirituality.  That means we have to know that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. We have to know that He lived this perfect and wonderful life. We have to know that He’s the Son of God and, as the Son of God, He took all our sins upon Himself. And then we have to know that He died for us on the cross. And we have to know that He rose from the dead conquering sin, death and the devil for us. We have to know that and we have to believe that. And if we do, then we are spiritually alive. Because the scripture says, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.” Mark 16:16. If you know those things and believe those things, you are saved. That’s the beginning point of our assessment. We have a pulse. We are spiritually alive.

Now let’s look at four key areas, I just came up with these arbitrarily, but I think they’re important, four key areas: Prayer, Worship, Study and Service. And let’s examine ourselves. I want you to rate yourselves on a scale of 1 to 5. Be fair here. Be honest. Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5 in these four areas of prayer, worship, study and service.

We’ll start with prayer. Give yourself a 1 if you never pray. Give yourself a 2 if you only pray when you’re in trouble. Give yourself a 3 if you pray at meals and at church. Give yourself a 4 if you pray every morning and every evening. Give yourself a 5 if you pray all the time for your friends, for your family, for your coworkers, for the prayer list in the Weekly Word at church, for the leaders of our congregation, for the leaders of our community, for the leaders of our country, for our national economy, give yourself a 5.

Now let’s look at the area of worship. Give yourself a 1 if you never go to church. Well, you’re all here so that doesn’t work, right. You’re at least a 2. Give yourself a 2 if you go to church with your family or your spouse but you don’t really worship. Give yourself a 3 if you worship several times a month. Give yourself a 4 if you worship every week. Give yourself a 5 if you worship every day, in the shower, in the car, at work, at church and you go to all six worship services that Gloria Dei Lutheran Church offers each week and you listen to all the sermons on line and send them by e-mail to your friends.

Now let’s go to study, studying God’s Word. Give yourself a 1 if you’ve never studied the bible and don’t even own one. Give yourself a 2 if you can remember when you were confirmed. Give yourself a 3 if your friend e-mails you the sermons. Give yourself a 4 if you read your bible regularly. Give yourself a 5 if you own ten bibles, read them all the time, have bible verses all over your house, go to different bible studies every day, teach children at church and have read the entire bible, have memorized many bible passages, learned Greek and Hebrew and sometimes write sermons for the pastor.

Now let’s look at the area of service. Give yourself a 1 if you’ve never done anything to serve God. Give yourself a 2 if you once shook someone’s hand at church. Give yourself a 3 if, on the way in from the parking lot, you spotted some trash and picked it up. Give yourself a 4 if you regularly help with ushering, greeting or making cookies. Give yourself a 5 if you’ve gone on mission trips, served as a Sunday School superintendent, helped with clean-up projects, written articles for the church newsletter, helped with the church website, helped with work projects at church, served the homeless, set up Christmas decorations, made meals for grieving families, led a support group, served on the governing board, sung in the choir, acted in the Youth Group’s dinner theater productions, changed diapers in the nursery, painted preschool rooms, served food at Care Night, played drums in the worship band, adopted children from another country, counseled coworkers and washed and waxed the pastor’s truck.

That’s a spiritual. Now it’s not very scientific. I wrote it myself. It’s nothing fantastic but we have to think about these components of our spirituality, these different areas that make us grow spiritually. We have to take it serious because all of these things, when we dedicate ourselves to growing spiritually, equip us to live in this world against all the challenges and struggles that we face.

Now if in the course of that assessment, your total score was between 4 and 8, you’re on life support. You’re barely alive. If your total score was between 9 and 12, you have room to grow. 13 to 16, you are above average. Or if your total score was 17 to 20, we’re talking sainthood. You’re a freak. You need to have more balance in your life, that’s all I can say. We can analyze things. We can assess things. We can do all kinds of things to evaluate ourselves spiritually but the bottom line is we have to ask ourselves what is my faith benefitting me? Is it really a value to me? Am I spiritually fit?

Galatians 5:22 gives us a little different perspective. It talks about something called the fruit of the spirit. “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. These qualities are a result of our faith, the product that comes from having a relationship with God.” They’re not evidence of a litmus test or anything like that but they are the natural things that come when we have a living and vibrant relationship with God. When we are growing in our faith, these things come out, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Are these qualities in you? Can others see them in you? Hum.

No matter what we do to assess ourselves in our spiritual fitness, we will always see a need for growth, a need for improvement. To be spiritually fit is simply to have an active and dynamic relationship with God. To grow in this direction, we just reflect back on our assessment, our spiritual, and come up with a strategy on how we will grow.

What areas do you need to improve on? Now as we would look at our doctor and he’d conduct a physical, many times he might say something like, “Well, you need to lose a few pounds.” Or, “You need to get some exercise.” Or something like that. What do you need to do spiritually to become more spiritually fit? If prayer is a struggle for you, it’s an area where you just don’t really get into it, you’re not really dedicated to prayer, it might be helpful for you to read a book like Too Busy Not to Pray by Bill Hybels or The Power of a Praying Parent by Stormy Omartian.

You can keep a prayer journal making notes of the requests that you make and the answers that God supplies. It’s very encouraging when you keep track of those prayers that you’ve offered on behalf of people, you find out the answer and you see how God has blessed that person. Recently, we had a young gal battling cancer and had to give birth to a child a month early. We prayed. The child was born safely, beautiful little boy, no, excuse me, that one’s a girl. Beautiful little girl. We had a little boy born last week, too. 6 pounds, 1 ounce, doing great. Mom had a PET scan to check out the cancer after the baby was born. No sign of cancer. It’s an answer to prayer. It’s exciting and inspiring to see God’s response to our requests.

Sometimes, you might just want to pray the scriptures. That might sound strange to you but I’ll give you an illustration. Here’s a bible story that talks about Jesus healing a boy with an evil spirit and, in the course of the conversation, the disciples had already attempted to heal this boy and cast out the evil spirit but it wasn’t effective. They couldn’t do it. So they come to Jesus and they bring the child and, of course, the child is displaying all these demonic manifestations. And the father comes too and it says, “Jesus asked the boy’s father, ‘How long has he been like this?’ ‘From childhood,’ he answered. ‘It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him but if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.’ ‘If you can,’ Jesus said, ‘everything is possible for him who believes.’ Immediately, the boy’s father exclaimed, ‘Lord, I do believe. Help my unbelief.’” Now as you’re reading that scripture, God might put it on your heart that there are places where you’re strong in your faith but then there are places where you’re not so strong, like maybe in the job search or the retirement benefits or medical costs or maybe there’s an issue that you’re just really struggling with putting it into God’s hands. And you can pray that prayer just like this man said to Jesus, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” Help me where I’m weak. Help me to be strong. So that’s praying the scriptures.

If worship is an area where you struggle, this is something really to challenge yourselves in. Long ago, I was convicted by the bible passage from Matthew 15:8 which says, “These people worship me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.” If worship is a struggle for you, if you’re just not getting into it, not getting anything out of it, I want you to think about this: When I was a teenager, that’s the way it was for me. I just went with my family. I didn’t really like it. I didn’t like being there. I didn’t sing. I didn’t participate. I just kind of stood there. I wasn’t getting anything out of it. The problem wasn’t our pastor or the worship style or any of that. The problem was me and my heart. So if you’re struggling to get into worship and get something out of it, what I would suggest is that you begin at home, just you and God, nobody else around. Begin at home just sharing your thoughts with God and asking Him for help and also asking Him to fill you with the Holy Spirit because the bible says that God is spirit and worshipers must worship Him in spirit. So in order for us to grow in this way, we need God’s Holy Spirit.

The basic idea in the Old Testament for worship was to be flat on your face before God. It was the physical position. You might have even seen it in the Middle East. The cultures still do that. When the dictator comes around, all the people just fall down before him, groveling before him. That’s not a very dignified thing to do but what we’re talking about in our worship is that, in our spirit, we are humble before God, completely humble, completely bowed down before Him so that we might come and worship and He might fill us up and strengthen us in our faith.

Another physical worship form is to raise your hands. Now I know, being born and raised Missouri Synod Lutheran, this is not a very comfortable thing to do, is it? It kind of looks peculiar to us. That’s how it was for me for a long time. But then I kind of grew in my faith and I thought, “What are these people doing? Well, they’re just expressing themselves in worship. It’s not anything to be uncomfortable with.” In fact, it’s pretty biblical. In the Old Testament, Solomon, when he was dedicating the temple, it says he prayed this long prayer with his hands outstretched toward heaven. And many places in the New Testament, Paul talks about lifting up hands in prayer. Raising your hands in worship is just an outward demonstration of something you’re doing inside. And I illustrate it this way: When your football team moves the ball down the field, crosses the goal line and the referee goes like that, what’s it mean? Touchdown, right? The kicker kicks the ball and it goes through the uprights. What’s that mean? It’s good. When you raise your hands in worship, you’re telling God, “You are good.”

If a little child comes to you, maybe 2-year-old, hands up in the air, what’s that child telling you? “Pick me up.” Right? Pick me up. Pretty clear message. When we raise our hands in worship, we’re asking God to pick us up, lift us up from the struggles, the challenges of our day, of our week, lift us up, strengthen us.

And finally, in a time of war, if an enemy approaches with their hands up in the air, what does it mean? “I surrender.” Right? I surrender. When we lift our hands in worship, we’re saying, “We surrender to God. We surrender to Him.” Those things are good. You are good. Pick me up. I surrender to you. There’s nothing wrong with that even though it’s sometimes beyond our comfort level. But it’s a physical way to demonstrate your worship and worship is something very important to us because it’s how God pumps us up and recharges us to live our lives for Him.

If studying God’s Word is a challenge for you, maybe you just haven’t ever felt a need for it or it’s a little intimidating to open that bible, well, I have an easy way to get started for you. I know you can’t see what this is but it’s a children’s bible. When I was a pastor in Houston, we sold these to parents of our preschoolers for $5.00 and I think they’re a little more than that now but that was 20 years ago. And parents were coming back to me and telling me all kinds of wonderful stories. One was that their children were actually learning to read with bible stories which is a pretty awesome thing, learning to read with bible stories. But what I also heard was that adults were learning about God as they read to their children and these bible stories are great. They have pictures. I like the pictures. They have the bible reference where you can find it in your adult bible and in two or three or four pages,  you’ve told the story to your children. So grab a child, grab your grandchild, snuggle up on a couch and just get into God’s Word a little bit. That’s an easy way to get started.

Now if you’re looking for something a little more advanced, read one of the gospels. Luke is a great place to start. Looking for more than that? You studied on your own, you want to really get into it more, join a bible study. We have many, many different bible studies that happen in this church and if there is not one that fits you, let’s start a new one. Lots of different opportunities. There are all kinds of devotional bibles, bibles that you can read through in a year. There is the two-year bible. All kinds of things like that, different ways to get into God’s Word.

Finally, the whole point of studying God’s Word is to equip us to live and to be strong in our faith. Matthew 7:24 tells us a story of the wise and foolish builders, “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine,” God’s Word, the bible, “and puts them into practice is like a man who builds his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against that house, yet, it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock.” That’s why we study our bibles. It is the rock that holds us together, the foundation we need to stand on when times are tough. Now I have to tell you times are tough. We’ve experienced some of it here but I looked online the other day and they had videos of different parts of the country and people going to job fairs and things like that. 9% unemployment in Georgia. 9%. It’s unbelievable. Other states just as high. This is a scary time. We need to be in God’s Word. We need to build our house on the rock so we can withstand what’s going on around us.

And finally, if serving God is an area where you just feel, “You know, I really haven’t done much at church. I really haven’t done much for God,” and you want to step up in that area, all you have to do is think about what your talents and skills are. That’s what God wants you to use. He doesn’t want you to have to stand up and preach a sermon or do things that you’re not comfortable doing. He wants you to use your gifts and just use them to serve Him.

I have a great opportunity for you. Not this coming Saturday but the following Saturday, we have spring cleanup here at church. Now pretty much everybody can participate in that. There are all kinds of activities we can do to make God’s house, God’s church, a beautiful place. We have Palm Sunday and Holy Week and Easter coming up and spring cleanup happens April 4, 8 a.m. to noon, here at Gloria Dei. So if you want to come and get started serving God, this is a great opportunity. There’s something for everybody to do to help make this place beautiful.

Now as you consider yourself and your spiritual fitness, I want you to hear the words of Paul and think about who this guy is. Now Paul is the guy who was stoned and beaten and shipwrecked and all of these things for the sake of the gospel. If anybody knows how to trust in God through difficult times, it’s the apostle Paul. Listen to what he says, “What then shall we say in response to this: If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus who died, more than that, who was raised to life is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword as it is written? For your sake, we face death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. Know in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

We are more than conquerors. That’s where we are spiritually. If we trust in God and if we desire to grow more and more spiritually fit, he will see us through. He will bless us. He will carry us. If God is for us, who can be against us? Amen? Amen.

Copyright 2009 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church