Am I Spiritually Fit?: Disciplines for a Fulfilled Life || Pastor Diego Mesa

Room.

Want you guys to check this out. The team's going

to follow me here. We got a really big room

that we're building for here as well, because oftentimes sometimes

we do kind of group therapy or we meet with

the family as a whole, and so we kind of

need a bigger space to be able to sit down

with families and to be able to walk through blended

families together. And so this space was really important to

us because when we look at how many.

People we meet.

With in our church regularly, we wanted a space that

was going to be able to serve as a time

where families can be ministered to and families can be

reached with what they're going through. And so I want

you to see this. A lot of times our youth

ministry is working with group teenagers and processing things together.

We do a little bit of group therapy at times

at biblical counseling, and so we'll do it in groups.

And so this room kind of glass walls are right here,

and this is going to be a group space where

there's going to be a big roundtable here at the

center and people are going to be able to work

through some thing together as a group. And so we

thought through this entire counseling wing. It's a large section

of our office because meeting our community where they're at

is critical to our church and our leadership team. And

so I just wanted to see a couple other things. Obviously,

we're building some bathrooms here, and this is our main

lobby for our church. So our headquarters isn't just a

place where we're going to be sending out all of

our youth and children's curriculum, all of our youth and

children's videos to all of our future campuses and current campuses.

It also serves for our rancher community, the place where

we walk through seasons of life with individuals, and so

I want to thank you so much from the bottom

of my heart for being part of this generosity. I

also want to thank you for believing in the Beyond campaign.

Thirteen million dollars committed, a million dollars given. I want

to share this with you. If you not made a

financial contribution to the Beyond campaign or made a commitment

out in our foyer, we have commitment cards if you

want to join us for the next three years. But

maybe you just want to give today to what you

see God doing at Patriot then be sure to go

to our website and type the Beyond campaign and give today.

On top of that, if you want to regularly give

your tieson offering for the regular needs of the ministry,

then you could do so at all of our campuses.

You could tap the seat in front of you.

You can go to any of.

The foyers and give it our giving kiosks, or simply

go to our website Patriot dot Faith, select your campus

at the give button you can give today. From the

bottom of my heart, I just want to thank our

Patriot family for believing in the vision to seek the loss,

teach the bound, and send the disciples.

God bless your family.

All right, Well, praise God. We're gonna have a good

time today, right, And I'm sure you're curious about what

we're going to talk about, or some of you are

smart enough to fill in the gaps. I want to

welcome our Alameda campus, big cheer to a town, and

I want to welcome Pee Pomona, and I think you

guys are doing an amazing job to reach Pomona and

all the surrounding areas as well as Alameda, and I

just speak continual increase to these campuses thank you for

being part of the family, thank you for coming to church,

thank you for inviting people to church, and we are

just one happy family. I want to talk to you

a little bit about a series that we are in. Now,

excuse me, I'm going to move this.

It looks a little too thick.

A series that we've been in for the summer that

our beloved pastor has simply challenged us with. And these

are questions for life, and we're dealing with the questions.

That you might have.

Overall, these are people that are dealing with I want

to know about adversity marriage, I want to know about

how to overcome and so today I want you to

listen to the questions that you guys asked, and we're

going to preach from that.

Question for life is how do I deal with with

the enemy getting in my head with certain intrusive thoughts,

and also how to deal with making tough choices.

When you're like in the moment and you're like deciding,

I want to kill my flesh. I want to be

loving to this person, but this person is being rude

or mean, and like it's not going the way you

want to. How do you quickly in that moment, shift

and turn it back around and let it be a

spirit led moment.

How can I grow in my relationship with Jesus?

How do I balance try to? Because sometimes I feel

like I'm living for the world. I feel like I

would live in a worldly life, but I would have

lived a life that alves with God's will, alives with

His word. How can I achieve that?

How could I work for that?

How can I overcome my temptations to sneak on things

I'm not supposed to?

But I feel like I say the same thing every

prayer because they don't know what to say when I'm praying.

Does this mean I am not connecting or connect did

to God and have a genuine relationship with Him.

When it comes to spiritual discipline.

The hardest thing for me to understand is where to

start when it comes to fascine.

When it's like your first time.

All right, great questions, let's stand on our feet and

we're gonna read God's word and we're gonna launch into this.

I want to thank Pastor Adam for giving me this

softball question that I get to deal with today that

just seems to be my wheelhouse and something that I'm going.

To enjoy very much. Notice what one.

Timothy for seven says. It says train yourself. I mean,

it doesn't say for me to train you. It says

you got to train yourself. So if you're flabby today,

guess whose fault that is. If you get easily fatigued today,

guess who that's fault is. It's not my job to

train you. It's your job to train yourself. Train yourself

toward what toward Godly godliness is referring to everything, the

characteristic of God, the things of God, to be like God.

That's what you're training toward. You're training toward a godly

kind of life or a christ likeness. He says, keep

yourself spiritually fit. Notice he didn't just say naturally fit.

Many of us are familiar with being naturally fit, so

he's already telling us. We're not talking about natural things,

we're talking about spiritual things. How fit are you spiritually?

How long have you been saved? And does your spiritual

life represent how long you've been saved? If I was

to walk into your spiritual trophy room, how many trophies

do you have based upon your forty years of salvation?

One little trophy like this or an elaborative overcoming victorious things,

triumphanting things, service things, giving things, loving things. That's where

I'm going today. So he goes on and says, for

physical training or exercise eyes is of some value, useful for.

A little but godliness.

This spiritual exercising that we're gonna talk about. This spiritual

training is useful and value ware in some things.

No, in every.

Aspect of your life. It will help you in your marriage.

It'll help you in the raising of your children. It

will help you in your job. It will help you

in your finances. It will help you in your emotional health.

It will help you in your relationships. It will help

you in your Christian character.

He says, it's.

Useful and of value in everything and in every way,

for it holds promises God just not telling you to

exercise spiritually with telling you there's a reason why, there's

gonna be rewards, and there's gonna be benefit for this

present life, but also.

In the life to come. I will reward you for.

Your spiritual exercise. Come on, let's shout and we can

be seated. Today we want to talk a little bit

about the lines of disciplines of faith or what we

might call devotions of faith or or dedication towards your faith.

What that might look like.

There's something called indetermined growth, which that means that something

grows until it dies. It will grow all the way

until it dies. For example, in the animal kingdom, a

lobster will continue to grow until it dies.

A shark will.

Continue to grow until it dies. A crocodile never stops growing.

It will grow till it dies.

Up north in Monterey we have the great Sequoias. They

will continue to grow until they die. In the human body,

don't look at your neighbor. Don't get discouraged today. But

your nose continues to grow until it dies.

Your ears continue.

This is explaining a lot to a lot of people today.

They thought they were losing their mind as their nose

was growing and their ears were growing.

But these are areas.

Why is it that Christians stop growing? You grew in

the seventies, the eighties. It's twenty twenty five. You're not

growing in your faith anymore. And you and I are

to grow. The Bible says in the grace and knowledge

of Jesus Christ until God calls his home. This is

the difference between somebody remaining a baby in Christ to

growing to full maturity. Just because you have the title

of a Christian doesn't mean you have the lifestyle of

a Christian. This is the problem. This is the answer

that you asked. But this is what goes on in

the body of Christ. You could come across people say

I've been a Christian since I was seven. That's wonderful.

Now tell me what you've done and now that you

are sixty seven in the Kingdom of God. Tell me

your faithfulness, show me your fruit, show me what you finished,

show me what you accomplished. So let me ask you

this question. What kind of shape are you in spiritually?

What kind of shape? Not naturally, I'm not.

Tell what kind of shape are you in spiritually? This

is my diagnosis of being in spiritual shape. How strong

or weak are you against temptation?

Can you handle temptation?

I don't know what your temptation is, temptation of cost,

temptation of lne, temptation of lust, temptation to be offended.

I don't know what your.

Temptation to overeat, temptation to gossip. It reflects your how

fit you are spiritual? Second, how strong or weak against fear?

Are you governed by fear, worry, anxiety, trouble. It's a

sign that you are not spiritually fit. Are you strong

in weaks against the devil's attacks? Do you know how

to rebuke him? Do you know how to stand on

the word of God? Do you know how to resist

him in the faith? Do you even know what that

looks like? It's a reflection of how shape you are

and how strong are you in your character? Your christ

likeness or character Christian character is your unselfishness and your selflessness.

Do you finish what you promised?

All of that reflects the kind of shape that you

and I are in.

Let me read your great scripture here today.

It's found in First Corinthians nine twenty seven. Amen Alimedum,

Amen Pomona, I got youa what's this? But like a boxer,

I buffet my body and handle it roughly, discipline it

by hardships, and subdue it for fear that after proclaiming

to others or telling them that I'm a Christian the

Gospel and the things pertaining to it, I myself should

become unfit, not stand the test, be unapproved and rejected

as a counterfeit. When we exhibit unwillingness or unreadiness, in activity, laziness,

or avoidance, like kind of being a roller coaster Christian

in and out, a tumbleweed Christian kind of blowing in

and blowing out, sitting in the bleachers rather on the

field kind of thing on the injured reserve list.

As a Christian? Am I a and Christian?

It's a sign that we need to get spiritually fit

and exercise some disciplines.

And fai I heard this the other day.

You might you might get a kick out of it.

I heard this on an Instagram line that says this

are you? The question was, are you a practicing Christian?

I said, what the heck is that?

Is that some kind of new terminology that is coming

out of today? Are you a practice? What is the opposite?

I'm an unpracticed what kind of witnesses that? Hey, I'm

an unpracticing Christian? Praise the Lord. But there's probably some

truth in that, because that's the water and downness of

our Christian.

Faith today, that we've allowed the culture.

To come in and we're not being as committed to

Christ in the Gospel as we should be. That somebody

actually can think and I'm not here to judge. I'm

just here to deal with that thought that somebody could

say I'm a Christian. I'm just not a practicing Christian.

So you and I don't want to fall guilty of

this unwillingness of unavailability, as a scripture would challenge us with.

I love this one in Philippians two and verse number twelve.

It's one of my favorite scriptures. It says this, Therefore,

my beloved dear ones, as you have also obeyed my suggestions.

So now only with enthusiasm, you should show in my

presence much more because I am absent, work out and

carry out the goal fully completing your salvation. Oh King

James says this, work out your own salvation with fear

and with trembling. Work out. Workout is not easy. As

much as people naturally don't want to break a sweat, spiritually,

Christians don't want to break a sweat. That's too hard,

it's too difficult. I can't be faithful to one woman,

I can't go to.

Church all the time. It's too hard.

Because you're out of shape. You have to learn how

to work out your salvation. Now what am I saying.

I'm not saying you're trying to earn your salvation. If

you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior, you

are saved. You're saved, you're born again in the spirit.

But you still have this cardinal flesh with all its desires.

So that which is in you must now work out

itself in the outside. And that's what we fail to do.

I'm saved, I'm born again. I'm a Christian on the inside.

I just don't have the mannerisms. I don't have the actions.

I don't have the lifestyle. Because you've not worked out

your salvation. That which is inside has got to come out.

You have a conviction.

I am convicted that Jesus Christ, God on the cross

for my sins. Where's your expression of that? Let me

follow that now to your job. Do you act like

a Christian on your job? Let me follow you to

your neighborhood. Do you act like that with your neighbors?

Let me follow you into your home? Do you act

like that at your home?

No? I don't.

So we're just got to work out more. That's what

I have to do. That's what I have to do.

Look at somebody and just say, come on, Petra, come on, Elma,

come on homeone just say work out a little more.

So I want you to.

Recognize there is a reason, a purpose, in a tenant

design behind God's spiritual training and exercise.

There's a purpose behind it.

And I just love the purpose of what the Bible

says in Sewo Timothy too. But in a great house,

or this is in the Kingdom of God, or in

the local church, or in our Christian faith, all those

are synonymous. In a great house, there are not only

vessels of gold and silver, but there are also vessels

or utensils of wood, earth, and wear, some for honor

and noble use, and some menial and ignoble use. So

whosoever cleanses himself from the ignoble and unclean, who separates

himself from contact with contaminating and corrupting influences, wat's this

that he himself will be or herself a vessel set apart, useful, honorable,

noble for the purpose, consecrated and profitable to the Master,

fit for his good.

Oh my God, this is what it's about.

This is why God wants me to be spiritually fixed,

Because if you're out, he can't use you. He loves you,

He died for you. You're going to heaven, but he

cannot use you. You and I are not useful. Instead

of being gold and silver, you and I are wood,

hay and stubble. Why settle for bronze when I could

be a silver Christian?

Why settle for being.

A silver Christian when I could be a gold Christian.

That's what he's challenging us with. It's not so much

that God is dictating how.

He's gonna use us or can use us.

It's we determine how useful we are in a predicament.

Now, I may succeed in.

One area, and God says, I love you for that,

you are blessed for that, But I want to use

you over here. And you say, God, I've never visited

that exercise, and so I'm ignorant. I don't know what

to do there. So God says, well, why don't you

go over there and visit it. So the reality is

this is that God just simply wants to use us.

And that's the purpose.

The purpose why we want to be spiritually disciplined in

our lives is the fact that God wants to use us.

So here's some keys to understanding. Salvation is free, but

Christ's likeness will cost you. Understand that. Please, if you're

a baby in Christ new to faith, just coming to

church is coming.

Christian salvation is free. But if you want to.

Act like Jesus, talk like Jesus, think like Jesus, have

the word of God in the scriptures living through you,

it's gonna cost you. It's gonna cost you energy, time,

You're gonna have to crucify the flesh. You're gonna have

to submit, You're gonna have to come out from your

old lifestyle. You're gonna have to give up some people.

You're gonna have to give up some things. And again,

we could say we are Christian by title but fail

in response ability.

I played with that word a little bit.

And again, it's not about earning salvation when we talk

about spiritually working out, it's about showing your salvation to

the world.

That's really what it's all about.

So with that in mind, I'm now gonna go to

first Corinthians nine where you go back there and go

back to first Corinthians nine, and I want to read

as we get into the meat of the message. I

set all that to set this up, so Pomone, I

know you're watching. I five Alemi, I know you're watching.

Here's good to be the meat of the message, which

are the apparatuses. So I'm gonna work through ten disciplines

in God's gym. You and I cannot ignore them, you

cannot avoid them. They are for every christ follower. They're

all found in the Bible, and most Christians have a

tendency to like one more than the other, so they

always go here, but they never go there.

So God can use you here.

I'll describe what's here is in a few months. But

God can't use you over there because you've.

Never grown over there. You never developed yourself over there.

So here's what one Corinthians nine, in verse twenty four says.

You've been You've all been to the stadium and seen

the athlete's race.

Everyone runs, but one wins. Run to win. Say that

with me.

Come on, guys online, run to win. Come on, Elam

to say run to win. Come on, pomone to say

run to win. He goes on, He says, all good athletes.

He's drawn a natural example to a spiritual application. All

good athletes train hard. That's the way you and I

are supposed to do. Every day, every day, I'm training hard,

every day. They do it for a gold medal that

tarnishes and fades. You're after the one that's gold eternally.

I don't know about you, but I'm running hard to

finish to the finish line. I want to hear well done,

they'll good and faithful servant. I'm not just trying to

get to heaven. Well, the doors closed behind it hit

me in the butt like I want to just bear.

I'm happy if I barely make it in No, no, no, no,

he says, I'm giving it everything I've got.

I'm being challenged by that.

I don't know that I'm giving it everything I got.

I'm giving everything I got in some areas of these disciplines,

but as I visit them, I'm gonna realize I don't

give everything I got. Have you ever heard of somebody

who's got great potential but they come out to be

an underachiever. They're drafted number one, they are predicted to

be a franchise player, They're gonna revolutionize the sport, and

they don't reach up to their potential. We're familiar with that,

so he says this. I don't know about you, but

I'm running hard to the finish line. I'm giving everything

I've got, not sloppy living for me. I'm a stain

alert and in top condition. Say that with me, Guys,

top condition. Look at your neighbor.

Left and right.

Let's just say, do I look like I'm in top condition?

I'm gonna get you mad at someone tonight. I'm not

going to get caught napping, using being lazy, telling everyone

else about it, and then missing out myself. Okay, here

we go. We're gonna launch right now. We're gon launch

right now. We're gonna go for a workout right now.

You're gonna go with me right now in the workout. Okay,

we're going into God's gym right now. How many of

you don't want to go into God's gym? God, bless you.

I excuse you. Thank you for coming today. It's been nice.

But we're all going into God's gym right now.

Okay. Now here's the reality. This is life. Now. You

got to understand this.

You cannot do these disciplines on your own. God knew that,

he knew this fallen world full of sin and the

evilness that's in this world, and he said, I'm gonna

give you a personal trainer. He's called the Holy Ghost,

because you will fail. You'll do it for a while

and you'll quit just the same way you do it naturally.

You go to the gym for a week and you

never go back. You buy that thing apparatus online and

you never use. It's under your bed. He says, I'm

gonna give you someone. So the Mark John the fourth chapter,

in verse number twenty six says, but the comforter, the counselor,

and not I like these words.

He's your helper, he's.

Your strengthener and your stand by the Holy Spirit. He's

gonna help you, say, he say, Holy Spirit, I'm gonna

share him right now. I know you're anxious.

What are these? Holy Spirit?

I need help with that discipline because I don't like

that discipline.

Holy Spirit. He will remind you when.

Because he's a convictor, he's a chasing her, he's a trainer.

You don't look at him and say, look at me,

how good I look? He says, turn around, let me

see your bats.

Oh no, no, no, no no no.

See you could fool the world like this. The Holy

Spirit he knows the secret things. They're hidden things. So

I'm just telling you you and I cannot do these

disciplines without the help of the Holy Spirit. He's there

to help you. The second question, I'm setting you up.

You're anxious, just saying come on, get to these disciplines.

I'm setting you up make I want to make you

run into the gym. Next thing, when you see these disciplines,

you're to say this, just like everybody else, how much

time do I have to put into that?

How many times a day or week do I have

to do that? That's common.

So my question to you is how good of a Christian.

Do you want to be. I'm not here to tell

you how long.

How much time to put in I'm just I know

my struggles. You know your struggles. It's about time. It's

about frequencies.

Okay.

The last thing, and I'm launching right now, is when

you and I visit these disciplines, you probably have a

scale from one to ten. Ten means I gravitate toward

this discipline.

Okay, Like, for an example, I'm.

A triathlete, so I gravitate towards swimming.

Swimming is a ten.

I gravitate toward biking. Biking is a ten. I gravitate

toward running. It's a ten going to the gym and

lifting weights zero I don't like. I'm not a gym rapped,

so if I had time, I'm going that way all

the time. I don't visit that. So you're gonna put

a You're gonna put a scale on yourself. Do I

gravitate my ten here? An eight here, a five here,

or a zero here? But the reality is you can't

ignore any of the nine that I'm gonna give you,

because then you'll be underdeveloped and the day of adversity

will show it.

So how many of you know pretend with me?

I could have buff arms today, twenty four inch pythons

right now, big boys? Why because I do this all

day when I go to gym boom boom boom boom boom.

So I'm strong here, but I do nothing here, So

I am not strong here. So as long as my

fight is here, I'll knock you out. But if my

fight is here, I'm a sissy. And that's what Christians

don't understand. These are not your disciplines. These are God's

disciplines for you to live victorious in this world. And

if you would neglect them and ignore them, I promise

you you are going to struggle when that is needed.

So let's go over here. Let's go this first discipline. Okay,

first discipline, I'm just gonna go.

Here and I'm just do so this just tips Okay.

So the first discipline is prayer, prayer, exercise self.

You're under godliness prayer.

Now, prayer might be ten to you, prayer might be

five to you, but you better go to prayer. Prayer

is this, It's nothing more than talking to God. It's

praying into you. Luke eighteen to one. Men ought always

to pray and not faint. You have to pray. Old

you how much God you want, that's depending on you

how long you're gonna pray.

You want little prayer than little God, then go pray long.

So prayer is praying into you everything you want, praying

out of you your flesh, everything you don't want.

Prayer is two things. Is the two seas.

It's communing with God and getting close to God. And

the other sea is combating against the flesh and the

gates of hell. With prayer comes all kinds of prayers.

I love praying in the spirit. There's not a day

that I do not pray in the Holy Spirit. Because

the Bible says beloved, build yourself up on your most

holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost. So diego bats

right now, probably about ninety eight percent in three hundred.

And sixty five days with prayer.

And he has a certain amount of time that he

knows how long he needs to pray to remain close

to God so that he doesn't give in to temptation

in the flesh, which is I don't know how much

gas you need in your guess tag to get you

from point A to point B. It's different for every person.

Seventeen gallons thirty five?

Guy, I can't tell you. You gotta know now the.

Discipline a prayer needs to be okay, So then we'll

come over here and I'll do a pull up. I'll

do LaMDA promote a pull up. What's the second discipline

you have to do?

Prayer?

How do I grow? How do my chure? How do

I get to know God? How do I grow closer

to God? Prayer? Prayer, prayer, prayer, prayer. Now, listen, I've

been say forty seven years. I used to send Meyers,

a young Christian people pray because they could pray for

an hour, not repeat a vocabulary. Their words were very

deep and I said, Lord, I want to pray like that.

And I found, like Gods, you got to put in

the time, got to put in the time, got to

put in the time. Practice makes perfect. So I dumbfound it.

I skip wor I mean said the same words it was.

I watched the clock.

It was dry.

It was difficult, But you keep practicing and you get good.

Good.

Nobody is good overnight, but the Holy Spirit will help you.

The second thing discipline is the word of God. Man

shall not live by bread alone, but every word that's

perceived on the mouth of God. Do not be conformed

to this world, but being transferred. How by the renewing

of your mind. Every day you need some scripture. You

need your Bible. I'm not here to tell you how

much to read. You know yourself how close you wanted

to get to God. But here is where faith comes.

Don't I don't have enough faith? You got faith coming

by hearing and hearing God's work. You got to read

the Bible to grow your faith.

No other way. Bible, How do I fall not.

Fall to deception, false doctrine? How do I make good

choices and decisions?

You got to know the will of God. You got

to read the Bible.

It tells you who to marry, how to date, what

to choose, attitude and reaction.

I got a stink in mind.

It's dirty, it's envious, it's hateful, it's lustful. You gotta

walk that's your mind in the word of God. This

is how you grow. You've got to learn to meditate

in the word, read the word, study the word, and

confess the word out of your mouth. When you are

bombarded by the lives of the devil, of failure and

defeat and depression, you do what Jesus said. He said,

it's written, speak the word out of your mouth. Life

and death are in the power of the tongue. The

word will not return void, but accomplish that which I please.

So so you and I have to have prayer in

our life as a discipline.

You and I have to have the Word of God in.

Our lives as a discipline. And then we're going to

go over here to these weights and we'll just simply

do some curls here.

And this one represents worship. Worship.

The Bible says God inhabits the praises of his people.

When you worship, God shows up and the atmosphere changesmisphere

is full of depression, negativity, sorrow sadness. Start worshiping, it'll change.

Psalms one nine says worship is a two edged sword.

It's a weapon. It is a I have learned how

to use this weapon called worship.

I bit a lot. And so you know as much

as how many of you know.

People have their favorite music on Pandora, they have their

favorite John there. Don't look at me like you don't

put mon to be honest with me. I let me

these people today they don't allow are telling the truth.

You have your style soul music, rock and roll, soft rock, country,

I don't care what it is.

What is your spiritual music? I don't know.

You have a repertoire in the natural, but you don't

have a repertoire in the spiritual that puts you in

a place to get close to God, that gets you

in the mind of Christ, that gets you in combat mode.

So I have Darlene Sheck on my Pandora, Darling Shek radio.

Man.

If I want to worship God, Phyllis presence. If I

can't go to sleep, I go to bed with it.

I just I'm bombarded by it. I sing, I sing

natural song, so I have a repertoire over forty seven

years of songs I learn.

That's why if you watch me on.

The prayer line, I'll just start worshiping. I don't care

if I sound like a crow. When I get to God,

I sound like a canary. I don't matter to me.

I'm not here to impress you. I'm here to reunmind

the devil that he used to be a worshipper, and

then I took his place, and now I can out

worship him. You gotta worship, Worship with your own words,

worship with the help of.

Someone else's music.

But worship, well, that's why I sometimes see people in

the heavy you're young in faith in church and you

don't know. But I see people during worship they're sitting

down drinking their latte because they don't know how to worship.

I see him going like this during worship the whole

time because they don't know how to clap. They don't

know the purpose of lifting hands, they don't know what

kneeling is, they don't know what a shout is, they

don't know what dancing. But if I put him in

a disco or a dance club, ma'am, you could get

it down and get it, but you do not how

to do that in the presence of God. Worship is

intimacy with God. Naturally, you don't go make love to

somebody goes.

You better know what to do.

And if you're gonna make love and get close to God,

you better know how to worship him.

It's the protocol.

Coming to my presence with that before you ask anything.

You come into the presence of a king. You worship

the King of kings and the Lord of lords. So worship.

Then we'll come on over here and do this. We'll

do some of these, okay. So this is fasting, prayer,

word praise, fasting life Isaiah fifty eight. See, oh, I'm

doing a ten over here. I'm always here once a

year of the first of the year. This is where

i'm here. Oh wait a minute, you're in trouble. Then

you don't understand what fastening is there? God, can you

That spiritual weapon is a dull knife, that is sharp,

that's dull.

So you have to have a fasted life. What is

fasting do?

It draws me close to God, It breaks spiritual darkness.

It crucifies my flesh because that flesh has noises, It

has a voice, is appetites, addictions, compulsions, gravitational pool and

I got to crucify that thing. And the only way

to do it is to deny. Whether that's social media,

whether that's TV, whether that's food, I don't care what

it is. But you got to deny yourself and crucify

that flesh and just do random fasting. I'm not here

to tell you whether you're fast to day, whether you

fast meals, whether you're fast thing, but you need to

live a fasted life because Isaiah says it breaks the

bands of wickedness and darkness. Strongholds are broken when you're fast.

We'll come on over here and do some do these

medicine balls like this.

I don't know.

I'm not a guy at jim Rod I told you,

but that's over there.

That's church.

You have to go to church, not forsaking the assembling

of yourself here. Well, I'm a Christian. I just don't

go to church. That's not a discipline. So you don't

get fed regularly by a shepherd. Number two, you don't

enjoy the corporate annointing, Like right now is a corporate

anointing flowing. You don't get to You don't get to

serve your community. You don't get to grow. Nobody knows you.

You're not accountable to anybody. That is what the purpose

of the church is for. Church attendance is a discipline.

So what have we gone over? Now? Prayer, Bible, shit, fasting.

And church. Okay, so here we go. We got to

pick it up. Now, come on, come on, alimta, what

am I gonna do here? I'm gonna do some squads,

That's what I'm gonna do.

Do some squads. Okay, So this is tithing now giving Malachi?

Watch this will a man rob God? Drop the mic?

Go home? When you don't tie ten percent of your

income or grow to that because you're young in faith

and you don't know that, then you're robbing God. You're

robbing God of him blessing you. Here's the main thing

why God wants you to because it controls your heart.

And when you give, then God's got your heart. When

you don't give, God doesn't got your heart. The Bible

calls it the spirit of mammon. For somebody that doesn't tithe,

what is the spirit of mammin? Watchays, this is what

tithing does. Every time you give ten percent. This is

what's broken off of you. This is what has broken

off of you. Greed, coveteousness, fear, and selfish I'll tell

you every person that doesn't tithe, they're governed by fear,

they're governed by greed, they're governed by cutfashness, and they're

governed by selfishness.

There's no other way to break that but tithing.

Okay, Then we come on over here and and we're

gonna just we're gonna do it.

Gonna do a sit up. Okay, did a sit up?

I got this pack back here, That's why I did it. Okay,

So we're gonna do a sit up. Okay. This is

serving volunteering.

It's taking the gift that I make a living with

and using that gift as a volunteer in the Kingdom

of God.

It's seeing a need and hearing a need and taking

the lead. It is you not watching but doing do something.

Do it.

Just just put a hand pick, Can you help lift

this thing? Or you just sit there and you're gonna

be a diva or divo. See it's a discipline. And

I'll tell you and I'm gonna end this right now.

Then we come on over here. I have to look

at what I'm supposed to do. Oh, I'm supposed to

do a push up here.

Okay.

So this here is evangelism, so winning, sharing your faith,

telling God's story of who he is, and telling your

story of what He's done for you. It's loving the

hell out of people by sharing the Gospel with them.

That's why I need the.

Holy Spirit because I don't know what to say, and

I'm scared.

But the Bible, a famous person says it's also Oswald Smith.

He says this, the church will fossilize if it doesn't evangelize.

You show me an old saint. I'll show you a

saint that doesn't soul win You show me a young

sayt at heart, they're soul winners.

I've been around this along. It said Statistically, the.

Farther you get away by being a Christian the length

the less you will win a soul into the Kingdom

of God. When you first get saved, you're evangelists. The

older you get in faith, you win less souls into

the Kingdom of God.

And last of.

All, this is this is a plank, okay. And so

the plank is community and knania fellowship, Who are you

accountable to?

Who mentors you? Who do you disciple in the faith?

All that you know?

Who if you're giving it to and pouring into, who

prays with you? Who are the.

Few, not a lot? Who are the few people that

really really know.

You could pull your coattail, that can pray for you. Again,

we say in this church, you will never have community

in rows. You have community in circles. And so we

need community in our lives. We need that fellowship in

our lives. A place where I belong, a place where

someone knows me, a place where I'm being transparent. These

are the disciplines I do have more, But I'm gonna

stop there because I'm gonna let you create the tenth discipline.

You're gonna go and ask God.

But see wherever you are on the scale, you've got

to increase it.

So here's it. Here's the landing point, Elamina Pomona.

Here's the landing point. Tell somebody how to what's the purpose.

Of getting in shape? What's this? What's this?

I'm gonna share it on the screen right now. I

wanna land this plane today by telling you this. Here's

the results of being in shape. And it's not just

because you could get in shape but not stay in shape.

So you got to stay in shape. Okay, so Hebrews

says this. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such huge

crowd of witnesses to life, to the life of faith,

let us strip away every way that slows us down,

especially the sin that so easily trips us up, and

let us run with endurance the race that is set

before us. Here's the acrostic for shape. Here we go,

here's where we go. You have these disciplines in your.

Life, and you will live a life of submission.

You will obey God, you will listen to God, and

you will follow God, and his word and his will

will be important to you. But if you struggle in

obedience to listen, to follow God, and you struggle to

know the will of God, you lack submission. And so

when you have these disciplines in your life, it starts

imparting submission to you.

The second word is heart.

Heart is compassion, mercy, forgiveness, kindness and love, not being

easily offended, not being bitter. If I struggle with unforgiveness,

it's because I'm out of shape, and I got to

get my heart right. But when I start getting in shape,

my heart starts getting right. Number three assurance Does God

love me? How do I trust God?

How do I.

Depend upon God? How do I really know that God

is real? How do I rely upon God? How do

I acknowledge God? When you start doing these disciplines, you

have assurance that God is with you, that God is

in you, and that God is for you. Your belief

go go to a higher level. Number four Power. You

start operating in power. You start having some victories in

your life. You start overcoming things in your life. You

start having the favor of God in your life. You

actually see the blessings of God in your life. You're

starting to have power in your life because you're having

spiritual exercise. And last one, you have endurance. You just

have a stick to it. This a tenacity. You don't

quit and you don't give up. You just continue and

you finish the course. And those are the benefits of

getting fit and exercising yourself and training yourself.

I'd like to end with this.

There's an image going on of Japanese people watch this

in Japan. There are now over ninety five thousand people

in Japan that are more than.

One hundred years old. Look at Look at.

How many of you nottly want to live to be

one hundred years old. Okay, that's ninety five thousand people.

I don't even know if they believe in Jesus. I

don't know if they know how to exercise faith.

I don't know that.

So there are people in the plan that I'll encourage

you that. They're ninety five thousand people. It's the number

one country with the longest centurions in the world in Japan.

Wats this?

Do you want to know how they're able to live

ninety five over one hundred years old?

W what's this? They have a disciplined life, they have.

A great diet, they're very, very active, they have low

OB city and are amazing in social connections. Now apply

that spiritually. What if you had a disciplined life. What

if you had a spiritual diet, What if you remain active,

what if you had low OB city, and what if

you stayed socially connected, you will live a long life

in the Kingdom of God. Pomona, You're great, al Amedia,

You're great Father. We thank you for the message today.

I pray it resonated in our hearts. So God, God,

it was so simple, so easy, yet so profound. Oh God,

may we go back and do a check up, because

many of us that have been in the faith know

these things. But maybe we've slacked off and we need

to pick up these disciplines again. Maybe we are doing

pretty good, but we know that we need to do better.

God Father, Again, our goal is to finish strong, Lord,

and we want to be spiritually fit so that if

you need us, you can call on us God, and

we are ready and we are available God, because we

have prepared ourselves for that moment that God will use

us in Jesus' name. Amen, we're getting ready to leave

this church. Thank you guys Saturday night for coming to church.

Sure appreciate you coming to church. But here's what I

could tell you. Nowhere in the Bible does it say

show me online or your social app or your physical Bible.

Show me the Bible where it says if you go

to church, you go to heaven. Show me where it

says that in the Bible. It doesn't say that. Show

me in the Bible where it says if you don't

cuss and you don't drink, you'll go to heaven. Show

me in the Bible where it says that show me

where it says that, it doesn't say that you know why,

because those are works and you cannot work your way

into heaven and you can't work your way out of hell.

The way we go to heaven.

Is just simply by accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord

and savior. The way that we accept escape hell is

by accepting the Lord Jesus.

I've heard so.

Many people, as I've talked to atheists, say the reason

why I don't like your Jesus is because he's sending

people to Hell. And how can a good god? And

how can I serve a God that sends people to how?

And I said, wait a minute, who told you that?

Told you? Wait a minute, who told you he sends

people to hell? The reality, he doesn't send anyone to hell.

Here's the truth. You're already going to hell. And they

look at me like I'm half crazy. They want to

fight with me. I said, you're already going to hell.

He is actually trying to stop you from going to hell.

Because you have lived a life of rejecting Christ. You

have made a choice. I am choosing Hell over heaven.

So you have decided to go He never decided you

decided to go to hell when you said, get that

Jesus stuff out of me. I don't believe in the

death baron resurrection of Christ. I'm not going to follow him.

You chose but in his mercy. Yet again he sends.

Somebody else to tell you the truth. He loves you.

He doesn't want you to go to hell. He doesn't

want you to.

Eternally separated from him, and he surely does not want

you to experience what hell has. So he tries to

bring truth, conviction, consciousness to you to tell you that

he loves you, scars, warts and blemishes at all, and

he doesn't tell you to get clean to come to him.

He says, has jacked up and messed up and tore

up as you are.

Come to him as you are, and he's the one

that will heal you. He's the one that will deliver you.

He despises and turns nobody away.

Except the one that has a hardened heart, who says,

I don't want you.

Come to him today. That's what broke me. That's what

broke me. I didn't qualify to be saved.

I had a lifestyle of sin and I was living

under that guilt and condemnation of that sin.

I fought.

I drank too much, I cussed too much, I fornicated

too much.

And the list could go on.

And the thing that broke me and I cried and

I was all by myself, was the fact that he

had forgiven me, and that thought of he forgives you, diego,

he forgives you.

It's okay, it's forgiven. And that just was overwhelming to me.

I don't know what you need to know today, but

he loves you today.

He's not mad at you. He's not here to judge you.

So if you're ready to come to Christ or rededicate

your life to the Lord because you've wandered away.

When I count to three, you raise your hand and

we're going to pray for you today, as simple as that.

One two, one two three, Raise your hand all across

this out a torum wherever you might be.

God love you, God bless you.

Let's just say a simple prayer. Say it from your heart. Say,

dear Lord Jesus, you know who I am, and you

know everything about me. I cannot fool you. I may

be able to fool everyone else, but you see the

secrets of my life. I ask you now to come

and forgive me of my sins, and I ask you

to be the Lord and s of my life.

And today I believe in you in Jesus' name.

Pastor Herron, would you say a final prayer over us

and dismiss us.

Amen.

Amen.

Anybody ready to get into shape go to God's Jim

if you said that prayer. We do have a free resource.

If you go to your web browser type in growed

out Faith. We have seven steps growing your Christian walk

by Pastor Diego for you to download, and upon exiting,

if you want to stop by the courtyard. We do

have our merch. We do have our Beyond campaign with

our counsel and care