Transcription
Sprengel lives not far from here, in his pasture at Leavesburg. Eleven years we're delighted to have him. He's always here as a student. Today, his teacher came up to him and said, "Let me ask a couple of questions to get to know you better. What do you—what do you do for fun to relax?"
"I love to read fiction and nonfiction. I love to run. I like playing football with my kids when it's warm enough, but it hasn't been warm enough. I enjoy coaching track and basketball. I like doing stuff with my family; nice. And I like Ohio State football. I thought I'd have that up there for people who cared."
"My family—my wife, Liz; we've been married almost 17 years. And then I have a 12-year-old daughter, a 10-year-old daughter, and a 10-year-old son. They're not twins. My son was adopted from Ethiopia."
"Wow. Describe the church, if you did not—to get somebody to come, but just come on, tell me what this church is like."
"I read your website; it's so well—I have several church members here, so they could—they could tell you. They're my cheerleaders. But one person described our church as the island of misfit toys, and I always liked that. It's a place where maybe you didn't fit in to a different church, a cooler church, a bigger church, another church, but you love Jesus and you want to be part of a spiritual family, so you came to our church and it became this place where you could get involved and get connected. It's sixty years old; it's in a small farming community. Most of the people commute 10 to 20 minutes to get to our congregation, so they want to be there. And then the people in the community, for some reason, don't want to be there, and we haven't cracked that code yet. I don't know why, but it's—it's a great place where people love God, love each other, and feel like they're part of a spiritual thing. They treat me really, really well, so yeah, I think so."
"Alright, this is obvious, and I'm sure it's going to come out in your talk—your help to us—why this subject? Why is it—a year ago you said we need more on this, and I don't—why? What is this?"
"Yeah, I—I've had this conversation with people who are in my field, other colleagues who are pastors of other churches, and they asked me this question regularly. And it has always bothered me. So, when are you going to go to another church? There's almost this feeling that you started a smaller church and work your way toward a bigger church, and that's the goal—you just get bigger and better, bigger and better. And I thought, 'That's not my vision.' My vision is to be long-term faithful with a group of people. I want to be their pastor from birth to birth to death. But if I'm gonna do that, I need to stay healthy myself, because I'm one of the best resources for them. If I'm going to be a spiritual leader, and so for me it's keeping that long-term focus of being a faithful shepherd to the same group of people over a long period of time. And I give out of the overflow of my heart, my walk with Jesus. So if that walk is weak, then it affects everybody in the congregation. If that walk is strong, hopefully it has a positive effect on the people in the congregation."
"Thank you. Does anyone need the set of notes that should be in front of you?"
"Yeah, I should have the screen for you, and have a laptop and you preferred it, then I'll have a QR code and a website that you can go to that—well, you can get the digital download, so it'll make it really easy for you to type that if you want to do that. So that's the QR code, and the title is 'Soul Care for Spiritual Leaders,' and we'll get at in a minute why I changed it from 'self-care' to 'spiritual leaders' to 'soul care for spiritual leaders.' It's actually a very deliberate shift. But there's—there's your notes. And let me see if I can get that website—that's what you can type in if you're on a computer, and that'll get you there."
"So I had this—I've been reading some books recently that have provoked my thinking, and they're not necessarily things you'd think a preacher would read, like *Ready Player One*. But I was told by someone, 'You got to read *Ready Player One*. It's such a cool book.' And I read it; I was like, 'I grew up in the 80s; this is like speaking to me—all these video games and all these references and all these—they're wearing.' But I do not get the virtual world. I have no concept of how life works in the virtual world where you strap on these gears and you live through an avatar. That just doesn't seem real to me. So I'm reading the book, and I can appreciate the story, but these people who want to immerse themselves in the virtual world—it doesn't connect with me."
"So he's reading that, and then there was another book I saw at the library. I picked it up; it was called *To Be a Machine*, and it was written by a journalist who—he spent two years talking with what—what are called transhumanists. Perhaps you've heard of transhumanists. This goes back to Adam in the genome; it's people trying to figure out what's the next stage of evolution for humanity. And so he talked to people who are implanting things in their arms because they want to have a better sense of sensation in their hands. So it's computer pieces buried in their arms so they can have a better sense of touch when they touch something; or it's people who have started a different political party because they want people to live forever; or it's people who are convinced that we can chop off our heads—we heard about this in my church—you can chop off our heads right before death, freeze them, and there's a—there's a place in Arizona—freeze their heads until technology advances enough, and then you can upload that brain into the cloud and become a new form of human. I think this is crazy; this is totally crazy. And so I read that book, and it was really insightful to me. I also read this book called *Zero K*. It's by a guy named Don DeLillo. He's supposed to be one of the best American authors to really capture our interaction with technology, and it was about this couple that was getting ready to die and freeze their bodies because they wanted to be upgraded to the next level of humanity. And the way he captures this woman's afterlife is so haunting. I'm reading these books; I'm like, 'Is this what the world thinks the next phase is—living through an avatar, chopping off your head, being frozen so you can live in the cloud, or implanting computer chips into your body so you can have a better sense of sensation?' Is this what humanity is? I started asking the question, 'What is—what is humanity? What—what makes us human?' And it was a really provoking question to me—thought-provoking question—because I remember hearing a theologian not too long ago say the next biggest question that we need to address as the church is, 'What is a human in light of all the—the gender issues in our age, in light of all the new technologies, and light of the debates about Adam and Eve—were they real?' What is humanity? So for me, this is the strange starting point to the talk of soul care. Let's lay a foundation for what makes us human, because we need to get at that—what does the scripture teach about us being human? We're created in the image of God; we're different than animals; we're different than computers; we're different than avatars. I want to lay that foundation first, and then I want to look at a couple of passages that I think give a—I think a healthy theological basis for soul care. That part's going to be interactive; you're gonna work around your tables; you're gonna help me develop a theology of soul care, and then we'll get into some of the fine-tune details. But for me to jump into the practices before we've laid a foundation isn't very helpful, because then we're just like picking and choosing, and when we're not really understanding what's the theology behind it."
"So I have in your notes a taxonomy of the soul, and I sort of borrowed this from Dallas Willard. He does some really good thinking in his book, *The Renovation of the Heart*, about what makes a human. And so you'll see this in his book, the taxonomy of the soul; he has six elements that create a human, and I've condensed it down to five. He talks about thoughts and feelings; he talks about heart, which is will; and then he talks about your body, your physical structure; he talks about social relationships; and then soul, which is the all—come you know, all-comprising element. This is—the soul comprises everything else. So we are a soul; we don't have a soul. Okay, so it's a really interesting topic. What I want to do here is look at a few passages of Scripture, and I have a ton of these that I could read to you, but I don't want this to turn into a systematic theology lesson. So what I'll do is just kind of skip around to a couple of these. But the reason this is important is because five years ago—I—we had—five years ago my mother-in-law passed away. I was actually at a pastor's PD the day that my mother-in-law died. We had spent three days straight as a family holed up together in the home, and I needed a break from all the family time. It was really good, but I was like, 'I just need to do something and feel normal again.' So I came to Pastor PD, and I remember sitting and talking to one of my friend pastors; he was like, 'So how you doing?' I was like, 'Well, I don't know; my mother-in-law is gonna die maybe today.' She had dementia; she had aphasia, which means she couldn't speak, but I am 100% convinced that she was a human being. She had thoughts; she had feelings; she had relationships; she had a—she was a soul. So all these things that we look at in our notes, these are things that she had. But there's a question that people are starting to ask—can we end our own lives? This is very practical; this really relates to where we're at. Five years ago, I was sitting in this very room as my mother-in-law was dying. I was thinking, 'Me—she's still human, right?' So the first thing—thoughts, feelings—mine. Okay, what Willard talks about in his book, *The Renovation of the Heart*, is that we all have a mind, which—our mind thinks, and our mind feels. Feelings are the next step of thinking; it's what draws us to something or repels us away from something. And we'll talk about this in his book, *Renovation of the Heart*. I just want to look at two passages of Scripture to validate this idea that we as human beings have thoughts; we're expected to think; we have minds. So if you flip to Romans chapter 12, verses 1 & 2, the passages I'm gonna look at are very familiar passages, but they're worth reading. The Apostle Paul's made this great argument throughout the book of Romans about how we are made right before God, not because of anything we—we're spoiled people; we're sinful; we're depraved; it's not because of anything we do, but by faith we are saved, and he talks about how Jesus wins this victory for us, and then in Chapter 12 he gets into what's expected of us, and the first thing he says, 'By the mercies of God I urge you, present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.' Okay, Paul uses the word—Jesus used the word 'mind' a lot, but here is a very clear example—transformation comes by the renewing of your mind. And then he goes on to say the renewing of your mind ties into God's will—what is good, acceptable, and perfect. Take you to one other passage—just flip to the next book, 1st Corinthians chapter 3, and it's talking about how God speaks to us, and here it says in 1st Corinthians chapter 3, verse 16–2:16—I'll pick up in verse 14—'But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised, but he who is spiritual appraises all things; yet he himself is appraised by no one, for who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.' And so those who are in a relationship with Jesus have the mind of Christ through the Holy Spirit. So these are just two passages that talk about the mind, and I could read other ones, but I have them up there on the screen for you."
"We go on to the heart. The mind thinks; the mind feels; the heart is the executive center of the person—that's how Dallas Willard would talk about it. It's where we make decisions; it's will—art—it's where our will is. And so when we choose or decide, it's our heart that pushes us in that direction. Okay, what we have here is a passage—is famous—Proverbs chapter 3; you can turn to Proverbs chapter 3, verses 4 and 5. And would someone read that for us? Proverbs chapter 3, verses 4 & 5. Proverbs 3:4 and 5. Okay, and someone go over to 4:23. Okay, these passages here talk about how the heart is a place of choosing; it's a place of willing; it's a place that also can be spoiled and corrupted, so we must guard our hearts. These are passages that you'd be familiar with. We have others up there on the screen. I'd like to go to John 14:27. This is a conversation Jesus has with his disciples at the end of his earthly ministry; it's the last week, and he's preparing them for what's to come. And if you've read through the Gospels, which most of you have, I'm sure you get to see—and I find this to be very helpful—that these disciples who had walked closely with Jesus still struggled to believe; they still struggled with doubts, and it—it warms me to know that when I'm wrestling with things, I'm in good company. Here's the disciples in chapter 14, verses 27, and Jesus says, 'I have spoken these things to you, abiding with you; but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all these things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives it do I give it to you. Do not let your heart be troubled; do not let your heart be troubled; do not let it be fearful.' So this executive center—this heart—it can be spoiled; it can be corrupted by sin; it's the place of choosing God; it's the place of pursuing him, but it also can be—it can be swallowed up or strangled by fear and worry. Okay, so that's part of the reason that we guard our hearts. There's one other passage and 1st John I wanted to read—1st John chapter 3, verses 19 and 20. I think this is important, too. 1st John chapter 3, verse 20. He's talking to these little children whom he wants to know that they're in the family of God; he wants them to love God, and then he says, 'We will know this—but we will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before him, and whatever our heart condemns us for, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.' So the importance of guarding our hearts is because it can be afraid; it can be worried; the heart can condemn itself, and so it's important to pay attention to your heart because God intends that the heart to be the place where you make good decisions, where your will is toward him and not self-condemnation. So these are some of the things the heart struggles with."
"We go on and talk about the body. This is one of the things that makes a human. So I mean—you—Manhattan, I think’s, and he feels—she has a heart where there is will, where there is desire. And Dallas Willard would say—and again, I'm using his taxonomy of the soul—he would say that the heart and the spirit are used interchangeably in Scripture. Again, I don't want to debate all these terms today necessarily; I'm trying to lay a biblical foundation to say what makes a human and then how do we care for ourselves in light of these things. So next is the body, and the body—there's several passages here. Jesus talks about the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. We have Psalm 32 where David has sinned, and we know that when David is sinning—and this is poetic language—but he talks about his bones feeling like they're breaking. And so there is a connection between our spiritual life and our physical life, and—and it says this in the book of James 2: 'If anyone of you is struggling with sickness, have you confessed your sin?' There's a connection. Now I don't want to be the one as a pastor to say, 'Hey, maybe you're sick because you were mean to your spouse.' Alright, I don't know if that's my job, but one of the—one of the things that you think through when you're physically suffering is how is this relate to my soul, to my—my spiritual life. Okay, we have Romans 6:12–14, and I think this passage is really important. So if you want to turn there, Romans 6:12–14. Again, the Apostle Paul's talking about how we have newness in life if we've been raised with Jesus after being baptized into death, but just because we're raised in the newness of life does not mean we don't struggle with sin; we do struggle with sin, and the Apostle Paul is mentioning that, and he says you can actually make the struggle with sin worse if you give your body over to it. So Romans chapter 6, 12 through 14: 'Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts; and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present your bodies as a sacrifice—or present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace,' is what he says. So when you give your body over to sin, it can become a slave to sin. So if your eyes are inclined to look at things that are not appropriate to look at, you're enslaving your eyes. If you give your hands over to particular acts of sin, whether it's violence or masturbation or something like that, you're giving that part of your body over to sin and making it a slave to sin. If you're giving your feet—and the Proverbs talk about this—if you walk to that house or if you go to this place, you're giving your body over to that and enslaving yourself. So we have to pay close attention to our bodies because there's a direct connection between our bodies and spiritual health. Anyone who's had a cold and doesn't feel like they're doing devotions knows that, right? Or doesn't feel like—like being nice to anyone in their house knows that there's a strong connection."
"So next we have social relations, and we know from Genesis 1 that God has created us as relational beings—male and female he created them. We're image bearers together, and he goes on to say in chapter 2 that it's not good for man to be alone, and so he creates a helper that's suitable for Adam, and then he expects them—what—to be fruitful and multiply. So we're supposed to be in social relationships—as marriage, as family, and then expand beyond that. Why does Genesis take so much time to work through these boring genealogies? And it's okay to say that they're boring; we don't live in an age that cares about genealogies as much as they did, but all these names—these lists of names—they explain how we're part of community, tribe, family. And so we have social relationships laid out. Psalm 133 talks about, 'Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together!' It's like oil going down Aaron's beard. And that's a psalm that specifically talks about community. Romans chapter 12, 1st Corinthians 12 through 14, Ephesians 2:11 through 22 and 4 through the rest of the chapter, all talk about how we're saved into community and how that there's something expected of us as saved people and how we relate to other people—not just the world, but other Christians, other followers of Jesus. And so there's an expectation that our spiritual life is lived out in community. Hebrews 3:12–13 is the one I wanted to read. So if you turn in your Bibles to Hebrews 3:12–13, this talks about the power of community for our spiritual life. Would someone read Hebrews 3:12–13? Okay. Again, this theme is—sin will affect us; it'll try to grab ahold of us and strangle us; it will try to make us a slave, but there are things that God has put into effect that allow us to overcome the temptations and to fight off sin, and one of those things is community of believers—people who—I love how it talks about daily encouraging one another. So showing up to church once a week, we know this as ministry leaders, isn't enough to encourage someone. We want people to be in small groups and accountability and ongoing relationships where there can be day-to-day encouragement—like when I walked in here and my phone buzzed and I got a text from someone from the church saying, 'Praying for you today,' my heart was worried about this event, but I know someone is praying for me, and that's what daily encouragement is capable of doing. So God wants us in community, and he saves us into community. There's a quote from Eugene Peterson that I've always liked; it's from his book, *When Christ Plays in 10,000 Places*. This is worth writing down: 'We are a community; we are not ourselves by ourselves.' As in, we are often defined by the people who are closest to us. You want to know someone well, look at their family; you want to know someone well, look at their closest friends. We are ourselves—we are not ourselves by ourselves."
"Lastly, soul. This is the all-comprising word. I think what's interesting about the soul is the way that it first appears in Genesis chapter 2, verse 7. If you want to flip over there in your Bible, Genesis 2:7. We know that Genesis 1 gives us one view of the creation account; Genesis 2 kind of zooms in to the creation of man and then woman, and it's a sort of different perspective. And I love this verse here, Genesis 2:7: 'Then the Lord God formed man from dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.' That's the New American Standard. Do we have a different translation out there that reads differently? He became a living creature—the Hebrew word there’s—it's—soul. He became a living soul. This is the moment where Adam takes on the living life; he is a whole person now. Deuteronomy 6:5 is a key passage that I'm not going to read it to you, but this is very well-known; this is from the Shema. 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.' I think I butchered that a little bit. Jesus repeats that, too, and he adds that you love him with all your mind as well. So that was a core idea—that you love him with everything that you are. When those words are piled together, I don't think the scripture is trying to create like—like I have up here, the taxonomy of the soul—if you have four or five of these, you're not a human. I think it's saying all of these things when it's mentioned in Deuteronomy 6, or—we'll take a look at one more passage—1st Thessalonians 5:23—another passage where several of these words are lumped together, and the Apostle Paul prays this: 'Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.' How many of you have taken a systematic theology class at some point your life and you've debated trichotomy versus dichotomy? Probably, yeah. And here's a famous passage, and the Deuteronomy one would be a famous passage for that. I don't want to get into that debate; it seems like there's a material and immaterial—"
Part you can see my body; you can’t necessarily see my spiritual heart. But really, what the scripture makes clear all the way throughout is we are whole beings, and the word “soul” is our word for a whole being. It’s our soul. In these Psalms 42, 61, 103, it’s our soul that hungers for God; it’s our soul that thirsts for God. That’s the language that the psalmist uses. In fact, the soul is such an interesting word in the Psalms that in Psalm 103, the psalmist can say, “Worship the Lord, O my soul.” The psalmist talks to himself; he’s doing self-care; he’s doing self-talk, but he uses the word “soul” for that because soul is the all-encompassing word. So that’s why I wanted to lay out this foundation and call it soul care, not self-care.
I have some quotes up here from Eugene Peterson that have always struck me as being pretty challenging. He says, “Soul is the most personal term we have for who we are. The term ‘soul’ is an assertion of wholeness, the totality of what it means to be a human being. Soul is a barrier against reduction, against human life reduced to biology and genitals, culture and utility, race and ethnicity.” But in our culture, “soul” has given way to “self” as the term of choice to designate who and what we are. “Self is the soul—God. Self is what is left of the soul with all the transcendence and intimacy squeezed out. To be selfish is bad; to be soulish is good.” He goes on to say, in this book “What When Christ Plays in 10,000 Places,” “Self is a threadbare word, a scarecrow word. Soul is a word reverberating with relationships—God relationships, human relationships, earth relationships.” Self, in both common speech and scientific discourse, is mostly an isolating term, an individual. So we’re talking about soul care; it’s the all-encompassing word for how we relate to God, in others, and as living souls. We have minds that think and feel; we have hearts that choose and desire; we have our bodies that can be enslaved to sin or it can be a great resource in helping other people in service. We also have our relationships—the people that we interact with. They could be family; they could be spouse; they could be friends; they could be church members, co-workers, neighbors, strangers. When we have all of those things together, we’re more than a machine; we’re more than a piece of biology. That’s what makes a human; that’s what makes a human. And so this is sort of the foundation I lay at the beginning. Let me just pause for a moment; see questions, interaction with that before we move on to a theology of soul care. You want to add? Yeah, yeah.
The self-esteem movement—that probably… I’m about… I’m 39; I just turned 39. I just missed the self-esteem movement in the public school system. But the self-esteem movement is so strong; it has created this army of people who have such a high opinion of themselves but not really competency, and it’s really problematic for our culture. And so everybody walks around thinking he’s a king or queen but has no rationale for why he’s a king or queen other than he’s himself or she’s herself, whoever that self is. And what this tells us is that God has created us as his living beings who can think and feel and desire and choose and relate to other people in really healthy ways, but we also are subject to the power of sin and how crippling it can be, how it can be a master over us. C.S. Lewis talked about this in his book, or this… his essay, “The Weight of Glory.” He says we’re walking… we’re walkin’ around many gods and goddesses because we have the weight of glory on our shoulders. We’re created in God’s image, but it’s really easy to twist that and turn that. That’s… he has a better understanding than our self-help world does. Other questions, comments? So we’re going from here. We’re gonna look at a couple passages that talk about how our… how our spiritual life can be formed, how God expects us to be maturing and growing and walking in alignment with him. But I laid this out because as we get into the practices, the practices are going to touch on our thinking, our feeling, our choosing, our relationships, our bodies, because if we’re not attending to all of those areas, then our soul care will be lacking. So I wanted to make sure that we… we covered this here at the beginning. Okay. This is going to be a group exercise where you’re going to work around your tables, and I have several passages of Scripture that I want you to… to take a look at. Okay, so I’m going to sign these out to you, and what I want you to do—and this… this may sound a little strange at first—but what I want you to do is I want you to just personally internalize the texts. So if you don’t have a Bible with you physically, find it on your phone or somewhere, because I didn’t put the text on the screen. I want you to take two minutes and just read the passage by yourself, and then read it again and just let the passage speak to your heart. And then I want you to take about five minutes sharing with one another about the passage and how it relates to spiritual growth, spiritual vitality, the cultivation of a healthy soul. So I’m going to start a timer after I divvy out the assignments. So this table here is Philippians 2:12 through 13; this table back here is 2nd Peter 1:3 through 8; you’ll be Galatians 5:16 through 26; I’ll have you do Ephesians 4:11 through 16; and then I’ll give you 1st Timothy 4:6 through 10. So read it for two minutes, just internalize it, and then talk about it for five. Enjoy overhearing people talking, and it’s like getting the context right. We can’t get the theology out of our system. That’s good; the Bible is a theological book. Now here’s what the plan is: I am going to ask someone from each table to read the passage, and then someone else from each table to share what you discussed. So you’ll have a scribe and you’ll have a reader. We don’t want to forsake the public reading of scripture. I intended this to be a helpful time of just reflecting on the scriptures together, and hopefully these passages speak to us personally. And so one reader, and then I’ll start a 3-minute timer. I’m really big on timers because we’re all in ministry and we can talk forever. So go ahead. We’ll start with Philippians 2. Always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence but much more in my absence work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So what did you discuss at your table as far as how does this relate to spiritual vitality, soul care? Couple things: the idea of obedience, obviously it takes effort, and in our minds think, Austin Peay, I have to discipline myself when I do put in the effort, but it actually feeds that in depth as we were thing ever working out our salvation, God strengthens us through that process, so it’s not a… but it’s not something we’re draining, but it’s a giver, not a taker idea. Also there’s… there seems to be a little bit of this tension making the background, we don’t have a Greek text, so we… the idea of the corporate, my dear friends, he’s talking to them as a group, as you’re working your salvation, there’s the corporate nature of it. PSB does say your own salvation, but again figure that out later, but that part of that would be consistent with Paul’s theology of one person suffering, you’re all suffering, and the letter to Philip I, there might be some internal tension, chapter two, verses one through four, live in harmony would want to know their be humble, be like Jesus, so work out your salvation as a community project, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply to individuals to do their own part. Okay, anything else from your group? God gives us what we need for the spiritual life; God gives us what we need for the spiritual life, the willing and the work, and he has provided, but that doesn’t give us a free pass to slough off, to be lazy. There’s an intended, expected effort on our part. We’re not working for our salvation; we’re working out our salvation. Let’s go ahead to the next one. You… you left a little time, so I decided to fill in the last part of your three minutes. The next group is 2nd Peter 1:3 through… to us precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of simple desire. For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. These qualities are yours and increasing in Jesus Christ. Amen. We should be awesome in our walk with the Lord; we keep adding to it. Go ahead and share what were your reflections. The first part is there’s God’s part, right? He’s granted to us all things that pertain to this, but that kind of similar what we just saw, Philippians, that doesn’t give us a free pass, and in fact the first class says it needs to be made every effort enhance this, which means it’s an active process, and kind of along the lines of supplementing or enhancing, we supplement this process. Yeah, so carry on fruitfulness in the knowledge of Christ, which, at a pointed out, implies that there is essential things on fruitfulness, there’s no knowledge of Christ. Other comments from your birthday? It says these qualities really should give us a point, spirit, put a spring in our step. Yeah, this is one of the tensions you experience the scripture all the time is that we know that we’re sinful; we know that we have setbacks and problems, but we also run into passages like this that say we’re more than conquerors in Christ and everything life and godliness are given to us, and we should be over like people who are really walking with the Lord should be overflowing with joy and virtue and godly character and confidence. So yeah, that… that last verse really gets it at the heart of it, people who care for their souls, and it’s always a partnership with God. He is granted, but we… we add on. Okay, that’s a great passage. Let’s go to your passage, Galatians 5:16: But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you shall not carry out the desires of the flesh, for the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, and being envious of one another. All right, and what were your reflections on that? I think even earlier in the chapter, good. So again we have the tension with the flesh, with sin, but we also have the Spirit working in and through us. We work in partnership, and this list of fruits is a good point of evaluation. We look at these fruits, how are these growing in my life? It’s not how many Bible verses did I read, but how am I growing in love, joy, peace, or the virtue list from first Peter or second Peter also gives you a point of analysis, how am I doing in these areas as I partner with God, but the Spirit. Let’s go to the group over here. I think you were Ephesians 4:11 through 16. It was he who gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head, that is Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. What does that passage tell us about maturity, spiritual development? Then we start out immature, and we’re babies, and his upward course, maturity of Christ. It gives us the posture of maturity, Christ, that we’ve all be built together, so it’s relational and unifying time. And so the building up is also that we would stay steadfast in faithfulness and walk with God, so the building up is for a purpose, and… and so we just love… just talking about the relational component. No, they did in Christ as the whole church, equipping for serving others, building up, but it’s about a journey from being an infinite crush to being mature in Christ and gives you some potatoes. Yeah, I’ve heard the expression before in the American church, we love to get people born again, but we don’t necessarily like to grow them up, and this passage says the journey is toward Christ’s likeness, is toward maturity; that’s the aim of what the church is doing. You got to get them born again so they can grow up, but there’s this discipleship process that takes place. There’s a common theme in yours and yours; it’s the body of Christ together. Yours talks about that service element to it at the beginning of your passage; it says Christ gave some as apostles of Angelus, pastors, teachers, so again there’s a partnership with God; he has given leaders, which would be those of us in this room to raise up the people in the church, so that’s… that’s the partnership that’s implied in your passage. I guess we have one left. If you point these things out, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, brought up in the truths of the faith, old wives’ tales rather. Train yourself to be godly, for physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance, and for this we labor and strive, that we have put our hope in the living God who is the savior of all men, and especially… basically remain be content in terms of what is… you don’t know it, call it out in the silliness and the things that are happening. I reminds me, say it to me three, we didn’t subscribe to that, remember what you were taught, front of the game, and how that truth does not change, but continue to be ingrained in that truth, but also the… the references throughout this text that’s really the word of the hard work involved, and in soul carry you have references again to being a servant, being trained in the words of the things, trained yourself regardless, then you have to this in, we boil, we strive, so continued reference to work, a lot of work, especially we were to put in as a… as a servant. There’s also almost a tenth, while there is attention here between bodily training and godliness, I said the… the energies compete against each other, Paul concedes there is some benefit here with bodily training, but the godliness, the effort, energy and godliness has extra body because it continues, and as I said, you know bodily training become idolatrous, and it does rob us of the attention that we need to give to God. Yours must be references the body, and it… that’s put that slant on it. Years talks about the works of the flesh, and so it implies that your body can… can be enslaved to sin or can be used for good, but I had that passage in there because it talks about the kind of training, it’s that spiritual training versus just lifting weights, but lifting weights has its values too, and we’ll get into that later. So yeah, again yours talks about truth; yours talked about truth; I think yours talked about the knowledge of the truth, so the mind matters in spiritual formation. You can’t be fully spiritually formed without your mind being engaged. Several of these passages talked about the decisions that you make; you choose to work out your salvation; you make an effort to add to your faith, so it talks about our hearts, our wills, our choices, a lot of them. Your passage and your passage talked about the body of Christ working together; you do this in relationship to other people; you don’t grow completely unless you’re part of some sort of spiritual community. Yours talked about the body; yours hinted at the body; the body is important for spiritual development. So these are just a few passages, but you could probably find lots and lots of scriptures in the New Testament, especially that speak to how do you cultivate a healthy soul. And the thing that I wanted to make sure was stressed in those passages is that God has a dream for his people; he has a dream for us to become more and more like Jesus, confident in our ministry, mature in our interactions, overflowing with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness—the kind of people who aren’t enslaved to sin. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but I’d love to think that God’s people who are intentionally cultivating their souls in partnership with the Holy Spirit, because God has saved them, would be a bright shining light, would be a useful vessel, and these kind of passages speak to that. There’s something better God intends for us people, and it requires us to work alongside God. So how do we do that? That’s the next… that’s the next basis. Let me give…