All right, welcome to making the most of your health. And today we're going to talk about how to have a bod for God. And that's the title of a book that I wrote, Bod for God. And if you have an interest in that, you can get one of those today. But basically what we're going to do is we're going to be working through this study guide here. We'll just get as far as we can get and wherever we end. We end, but you'll at least have all the scriptures there. Maybe we'll get all the way through this. But I do want to have some Q&A time. So, if you have any questions, or anything you want to ask, feel free to do that. But we're going to talk about a subject that most men don't talk about very often, and that is their health. And one of my favorite passages related to this is 2 Samuel 20, verse 9. It says, Are you in health, my brother? Now, why do I like that passage? I like it because there's two guys, two men talking about their health. I mean, you know, the ladies, what do they do? They get together, they talk about their health and they talk about their kids and all that stuff. And then the guys, we get together, we talk about our work and we talk about the, you know, the redskins or whatever. And, you know, it's very rare for two guys to say much about their health. But here's two guys, and they're dealing with the question we're going to deal with today, and that is, are you in health, my brother? In 3 John verse 2, the Bible says this, Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things, listen, underline this if you've got a pen, and be in health. just as your soul prospers. So, the Bible says God wants our soul to prosper. We're to prosper in that sense, but also we're to be in health. We're to make the most of our health. And when it comes to this issue of health, one of the biggest things that many of us struggle with is our weight. And I want to take just a few minutes here and just kind of give you my background and help you understand kind of where I'm coming from in this area and to give you a little bit of my testimony. And basically my testimony is I've struggled with weight all my life. I actually weighed over a hundred pounds in first grade. Now, today it's not unusual for kids to be overweight, for kids to be heavy. One out of three children today are obese. In fact, I'm gonna be writing two more books, and one of the next books is gonna be Body Forgot Family, because I have a real heart for childhood obesity, because I struggle with that myself, and for most of my life, did a lousy job raising our children, and because of that, they struggle with that. And so, that's a big issue close to my heart. So I know what it's like to be heavy all the way from the early years of my life. But I got involved in sports and particularly football. And I got involved in playing football from the time I was a child all the way through college. And I was fortunate enough to actually get a four-year scholarship to play college football. I played at the greatest university in the world. Yes, you guessed it, Liberty University. I knew that's what you were going to say. Go Flames. And I was a four-year starter, fully scholarship player. Now, maybe you know about college football, maybe you don't. But let me just give you a little insight. It's not just something you do during the fall. They give you a scholarship, but I'm telling you, they literally take control of your life 12 months out of the year. And I particularly went to a school where our founder, our chancellor, had this vision that liberty for evangelicals would be what Notre Dame is for Catholics or Brigham Young is for Mormons. And even though it was a young school, they were pouring lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of money into the football program because they wanted to build this big-time football program. And so with that, I mean, there was lots of pressure, lots of intensity put on this part of the school. And good or bad, right or wrong, the reality is when I finished playing college football, I was sick of exercising. In fact, I was done with exercising, and I literally made a promise. I made a promise that I was never going to exercise again in my life. Literally. And I've broken a lot of promises, unfortunately, in my life, and I'm sure you have too, but I kept that promise until I was 48 years old. But here's the deal. I quit exercising like a football player, but I never stopped eating like one. Now, about that time in 1982, I left Southern Virginia, Central Virginia, and came up here to Northern Virginia. And in 1982, I started a brand new church. Nobody invited me here. Nobody asked me to come here. I didn't know anybody here. I just believed God had called me to this area to start a new church. And so I started that church. And the good news is that little church grew. And I've been pastoring that same church now for 29 years. The bad news is I grew, okay? And I got up to 340 pounds. Four years ago, I weighed 340 pounds. I had high blood pressure, I had high cholesterol, and I had diabetes. I was taking eight pills a day for those health issues. Okay, again, I was digging my grave with a knife and a fork and my number one addiction was ice cream, ice cream. And so there I was, you know, in that situation in my life and as a man, I mean, the thing I think that we can relate to is that we want to have a legacy. I mean, when our speaker today talked about the fourth quarter and making a difference with your life. mean for us guys I mean most of us resonate with that when he talks about wanting to be around I love that statement he said to be around to serve how did he put it his bride and his kids and God's bride and God's kids I like that statement yeah it was a powerful statement I mean that's where I was in my life you know I'm looking forward to heaven I'm just not in a hurry to get there And I want to be here, okay? I want to serve my bride and my kids, and I want to serve God's bride and God's kids. And I didn't want to dig my grave with a knife and a fork and an ice cream spoon. So here I was saying, okay, what are you going to do? You got to make a change. And so what I did was one day I said, okay, I'm a pastor. I tell people the answers for everything are in the Bible. You just need to go to the Bible. So here's what I did. I looked up the word body in the Bible and I discovered that it's in the Bible 179 times. And out of that, I crafted what I'm gonna share with you today, these four keys to a better body, or these four keys to weight loss. Now, I still have a ways to go with my body for God. I still need to lose weight myself, okay? But with these four keys, I personally have lost over 120 pounds now. And in our church, through what we call the Losing to Live Weight Loss Competition, we've now lost over six tons of weight, over 12,000 pounds. And so what I'm sharing with you today, I'm telling you, it will work for you. And the biggest reason it's gonna work for you is the Bible says, Jesus said, you know the truth and the truth will set you free. And I'm telling you, what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at the Bible, okay? And we're gonna look at God's word today. So that gives you a little bit of my background and helps you kind of understand where I'm coming from. But when you think about this, you need to realize that a lot of us are struggling. I'm not surprised every chair is filled. I'm not surprised we had to put up more chairs. What I may be surprised by is that they didn't give us the auditorium or whatever. The truth is that Christians are the most overweight people group. That's an absolute documented fact. We are the most overweight people group in America. Well, why? Because we don't smoke pot, at least we shouldn't, but we do a lot of pot luck, don't we? So we know all about that stuff. That's all part of the culture of the church. Wink, wink, we both know gluttony is a sin. Wink, wink, but we're not going to talk about it because we're going to talk about don't smoke, don't cuss, don't chew. don't go with girls who do with gravy dripping out of her chin. That's what we're going to do, okay? That's the Christian way, okay? That's the godly way or whatever, you know? And so we're not surprised by that. Then among the Christians, guess who the most overweight people group is among the Christians? The Baptist. I pastor a Baptist church. So that's why we're here at Reston Bible Church today, because this is a healthy, skinny group of people here. And that's why we came out here today. All right? So the point is, I mean, you know, this is a big issue. This is a big need. Now, what disturbs me about that statistic And one of the reasons I'm giving my life, for the rest of my life, to being the anti-fat pastor, as the media calls me, is that I want to change that statistic. And one of the biggest reasons I want to change that statistic is because it's far from being like Jesus. What do you think Jesus was like physically? Ever thought about that? What was He like physically? Well, my friend Carol Lewis, who heads up a ministry called First Place for Health, wrote a book called Choosing to Change. And in that book, she talked about what Jesus was like physically. Let's read what Carol says here. She says, the pictures of Jesus that I remember from my childhood showed him to be rather frail. However, the Jesus of the Scriptures is quite a different person. We know that Jesus was a carpenter by trade. Until He began His public ministry at age 30 He earned His living as a carpenter. He had to carry large pieces of wood and stone to build structures. His trade would have required great physical strength. We also know from Scripture that Jesus walked from siding to tire, which would have been a 40-mile trip. And how long did he take? One day. Okay, think about that. Instead of comfortable tennis shoes, he wore handmade sandals as he walked over rough and rugged terrain. That's Jesus. fully capable of walking 40 miles in one day. And yet on the planet today, we are the most overweight people group. That disturbs me. That bothers me. And it just shouldn't be that way. And so we need to realize if we're gonna be like Jesus, we talk about being like Christ, part of being like Christ is taking care of your body and honoring Him with your body. And so that's what we're gonna be talking about today. during this time together. Now, all the passages I'm going to refer to are in this study guide, but I'm going to begin by reading one of those that's not there. And you can just listen, or if you happen to have a Bible, you can use it. It's Colossians 1.16. Colossians 116 and I just want to mention I got Mike here Mike parks it with me today and Mike is a Member of Woodstream Church over in Maryland. They actually hosted the last Event the last Wacom event over there and I had the privilege of meeting Mike over there and And he got involved in this, he's lost a lot of weight, and they've now started their church. And he's going to give us a testimony here in just a little bit, okay. So, I just want to throw that out for you as well. But Colossians 1.16 says this, For by Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible. Whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created, listen, by Him, or your translation might say through Him, all things were created by or through Him and for Him. Now let's notice that statement, we were created by Him or through Him, but also we were created for Him. So what does this mean? Your body is made, listen, through God and for God. Your body's made through God and for God. We're to have a bod for God. Now notice there's two parts of that. The first part is that God's the creator of our bodies, okay, that he made us. and He created us, and we recognize and we honor Him as the Creator. And for the most part in our churches, we're really strong in that area. I mean, we believe in God, the Creator God. But it doesn't just say we were created by God, it also says we're created for God, meaning He is not only to be the Creator of our bodies, which He is, He is also, listen, to be the controller of our bodies. We're to allow Him to control us. We're to be for Him. We're to be honoring Him with our bodies. And this is the area where we're weak, okay? We're weak. We're big on creator of our bodies, but we're weak on controller of our bodies. And because we're out of balance in this area, I mean, what's happened is we've just kind of given ourselves away, and we've allowed other things to take over our lives. And so today what we're going to do is we're going to talk about, you know, what can we do? What can we do? Now, as I said, what I did was I went to the Bible and I looked up the word body. It's in there 179 times. And out of that, I crafted these four keys. Now, the bottom line is I never intended to preach about this. I never intended to teach about this. I never intended to write a book about this. I never intended to lecture about this. I never intended any of that. That was never my plan. All I was doing was I had a need in my life, and I wanted to change my life in this area, and I wanted to see what God's Word would tell me about it. But since that time, I mean, God's allowed this to be just a huge ministry in my life, just another opportunity, another platform for serving God. And the point I'm trying to make to you is that, I mean, God is moving, God is working, and He's opening up opportunities for us all, and He's wanting to work in our lives. And I hope you'll just allow God's Spirit to speak to you, and you'll allow God's Spirit to minister to you today. But right now, I'm gonna ask Mike to come and, give us a word of testimony about what he's experienced with these four keys, and then also maybe share a little bit about what's going on at their church. So let's welcome Mike as he comes. Thank you. I just, the thing I want to do is just As I speak, I would just like you to pray to yourself that God, in the Bible, it says that when we speak, we should speak as if God is speaking. So when I'm speaking to you, I know that God is going to answer that. I know that it's going to be Him speaking because His Word says that anything we pray for in His will, He hears us. And we know if He hears us, we know we have what we ask for. So He's going to do that. You're going to hear God. speak to me and I'm just I'm just thankful to be I'm humble. I'm humbled to be here because just as Pastor Steve just said, I never intended to write a book. I never pretended to us. I met him less than a year ago. I never thought I would be here speaking about weight loss in front of people at a Wacom conference. So I was just going to his table last year because at my church Woodstream in Maryland, his his table was there with all of his stuff. And I went there looking for information because I had been having yo-yo issues of my own. And I'm just looking for a book. I saw By For God. I immediately wanted it. I didn't even really open the book. I just looked at it. I looked at the back. I want it. That's exactly what happened. Unfortunately, he wasn't even at the table. And I was a little irritated. I really was because I kept going back to the table and he was not even there. And I'm like, where is this guy? And finally, I took his stuff. I did. I mean, he had this up there. He had the DVD. He had the magnet. I just took it. But the thing is, the Holy Spirit convicted me because I'm not a thief or anything, but the Holy Spirit convicted me. I still had to go back. And even when I went back, I was getting irritated because I couldn't even find him to tell him I took his stuff. So finally at the end of the conference, he's packing up in his room, boxes and stuff going out, and I was like, Pastor Steve? And he's like, yeah, I told him that I was the thief who took his stuff, and he shook my hand and didn't hit me. And then he told me, I said, do this stuff cost? He said, of course it costs. Because you know how sometimes you have conferences and they have stuff for free, right? That's the reason I took it because I didn't think, I was hoping it wasn't free because then I would have kept coming back and it would have been all gone and I would have missed out. But he told me where to send it, he invited me and my wife out to the program. It just so happened, God knows what he's doing, it just so happened that he had another competition, weight loss competition starting up in May. So my wife and I, we came to the competition. My wife is in really great shape. My wife works out all the time. She's in very good shape. And so when my wife came, she was concerned that she wasn't going to lose any weight. I personally had lost some weight already because of the path that I was on, but I knew I wanted to lose more weight. So when I went to the program, it asked you, how much weight do you want to lose on the form? And I just put 20 pounds. I just said, okay, 20 pounds. And my wife put 10. So, as we're going through the program, I started losing weight, and I never doubted the program. I believed it would work because I knew it was a biblical program. And Pastor Steve, I came in a little late because I was at the table talking to some people, but he probably told you about the three elements of his program. It's biblical, it's personal, and it's incremental. All I needed to hear was biblical. That's guaranteed success. Biblical is guaranteed success. The other stuff is gravy. But the personal and incremental part is key because it's about your personal relationship with Christ. This is not a weight loss program. Y'all might think it is, but it's not. God uses everything to draw people to him. It just so happens that this is a weight loss program. And so when people come in thinking it's a weight loss program, and really they find that they have a meeting with God. And then, as you're losing weight, you realize that God is working with you. I find myself studying more, studying the Bible more, you know. And so, I mean, I studied the Bible, too, but I really study the Bible now. And so, it's personal. You make small, simple changes, incremental. Cold turkey is not bad, but unfortunately, a lot of us can't go cold turkey. Okay so with the program I lost over 26 pounds in the program in nine weeks. Okay I'm happy to say that I'm less now than I was when I weighed in last at the program and I'm still losing weight. The program ended in the summer. My wife and I were so excited that we went to our church and we talked to the pastor. The pastor allowed us to bring the program to the church. Right now we're going into our fourth or fifth week in the program. We had about 55 people registered for the program. It's a pilot program. It's designed to fully launch at the beginning of the year. So we're excited about that. And I'm humble and excited to be in front of you right now to share with you. So if anybody here is interested in taking the program, it definitely works. If you know of anybody, you know, anybody, and that's really anybody, because it's not about looking like you need to lose weight. It doesn't matter whether you look like it. Some people could look like it. But some people could look like it and still need it. So I encourage you to just get all the information that you can and take advantage of the program. I appreciate your time. OK. Thank you, Mike. That was great. Pull that out. Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's right. All right. Very good. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mike. I appreciate that very, very much. And literally thousands of people have lost tons of weight through this program. And again, the big thing is it's the Word of God. I mean, God didn't just make us and say, do the best you can. He made us and gave us 179 times how to handle this body and what to do about this body. So there I am, 340 pounds, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and I'll just go ahead and say I'm medication free today. I don't have any of those health issues in my life because of the weight loss. And so God has set me free when it comes to those different areas of my health. And so there I am again, literally I'm in closed doors here studying this stuff. I had no intention to ever talk about this. I mean it was just nowhere in my mindset. I mean I had never heard a pastor preach about weight. And I grew up in the church and went to a fantastic church and, and, uh, and, uh, you know, big school. And I never heard anybody talk about this stuff. So I wasn't thinking, I'm going to get this together. I'm going to start preaching about this. Cause I never, preachers didn't talk about that stuff. It was just something you didn't, you didn't talk about. In fact, uh, the way I got started on this, I had a reporter. I did, I took a postcard after I decided that God was leading me to preach on this. Cause so many people were asking me what I was doing. I decided to do a series and I did this postcard mailing to the community. And the way I got where I am today is a reporter with the Washington Post got this postcard and said, Bob forgot four keys to weight loss. Come here, Pastor Steve Reynolds. And she picks up the phone and calls me and says, hey, I got your card. She says, this is really interesting. Can I come hear these messages? And I'm thinking, sure, that'd be great. Come on in, you know, whatever. And so she shows up, and bottom line is, she ends up writing an article that was on the very front page of the Washington Post. And God used that article, God sent that article through the wire services all around the world, and within 30 days, I mean, my life was totally turned upside down. I mean, I was now the anti-fat pastor. And I had media every Sunday. We had cameras at our church. I'm going to have the Today Show coming to spend 24 hours with me sometime here soon. They're going to follow me around. In fact, I got to get home and clean up my kitchen. They are going to just spend the day with me, just see what life is like for the anti-fat pastor, and things like that. And God has just given me lots of neat opportunities like that to share this message. And again, I say that in no way to brag, okay, but to say, you know what, God has hope for us, and God is up to something. He is moving. So, what are those four keys that I discovered? Well, number one, the first is D. And that's dedication. That's honoring God with your body. Now, you're going to notice there's an acrostic here, D-I-E-T. Diet. D-I-E-T. Now, honestly, if I knew I was going to be going public with this thing, I probably would never have came up with that acrostic. I was just trying to come up with a way to remember what I was learning. And that's how I got through school. I mean, I'm not the brightest bulb in the room, I can assure you, okay? And I had to come up with all kinds of little things getting through college and seminary to help me remember stuff, like, you know, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. You know, you remember the order of those books in the Bible? Go eat popcorn, okay? Or if you're a big-time guy, General Electric Power Company, okay? I mean, that's my life. I mean, I'm not the most brilliant person in the world. A lot of you have a lot higher IQ than me. So, that's just kind of how I get through life, you know, coming up with little systems like that. And so, I'm thinking, okay, I see what God's showing me here. How can I remember this? And so I came up with this acrostic, D-I-E-T. Now the reason I wouldn't have really chosen that, so to speak, if I knew where it was all going, is because usually people think two things when they hear the phrase diet. Number one, they think of the first three letters. What are the first three letters? Die. I'm going to die if I have to do this. If I have to drink another one of those shakes, I mean, you know, I think I'm going to vomit, okay, or whatever. I mean, you know, they're thinking all this negative stuff, you know. And then secondly, people think short term. They think I'll do this for a period of time, a month or two or whatever, then I'll go back to my old lifestyle. But this isn't a diet plan. This is a livid plan. See, you gotta craft something that you're gonna do the rest of your life. Did you hear me? You gotta craft something that you are gonna do the rest of your life. Okay, as Michael mentioned, I didn't get a chance to say it yet, but the three unique things is it's biblical, which we've already said. It's incremental. Okay, it's incremental. You do it through what we call small steps to life. That's the best way to change. And then it's personal. And what I mean by that, you gotta craft your own personal lifestyle plan. Why do one size fits all? One size fits all programs fail because they don't work because we are all different. Some of us are younger. Some of us are older. All of us in this room are men, but sometimes there's women as well. Some of us are single. Some of us are married. Some of us have little kids. Some of us have no kids. Some of us have teenagers. Some of us are empty nesters. Some of us grew up in the South like I did in Southern Virginia. I was brought up to crave grease and sugar. If you just want to make something better, put more grease in it, whatever. That was just the lifestyle. But not all of us grew up around it. A lot of you grew up eating a lot of pasta, maybe an Italian family. I hardly ever had pasta. I mean, just don't think anything about pasta. I mean, it wasn't in my background. See, you train your cravings. Your taste buds are trained. The reason about 10 o'clock every night I said, it's time for some ice cream. And when I say every night, I mean every night was from the time I was a little boy in Alfred Reynolds' home. My dad's home, around 10 o'clock came, it was time to go to the refrigerator. Actually, he told my mother to go get it, but anyway, go, Betsy, ready for my ice cream, okay? And a lot of times, my dad didn't even use a bowl. He would just grab the whole half gallon, you know, and he would just sit there and eat it, you know? And so, after we got married, you know, I figured as a spiritual leader of my family, that's how a family's supposed to go. And so, I said, okay, in our home, we're having ice cream every single night. And we did, and we did. And I trained my taste buds that way. And so the point is, I mean, that was something unique to me and personal to me, and I had to deal with that as an individual. So I had to come up with a personal plan that was gonna help me to live a healthy lifestyle. Usually the first thing people do when they pick up a book like this is they look for the plan. They'll start flipping through it and saying, okay, there's gotta be some menus in here, there's gotta be eat this, do this, and they go through, What kind of book is this? I don't even see a single menu in here. This is the most horrible book probably ever written here. What kind of idiot wrote this? It's not in here. I'm going to tell you how to come up with your own plan. It's going to work for you. I'll tell you how to find some menus in here, but there aren't any in there. The point is, it's got to be your plant. It's got to be your plant. With that in mind, let's start with D. D is the most important one. Really, all we need is D. Okay, we'll get to the others, but honestly, if we just take care of D, it's all gonna be fine. And D is dedication, dedication. Now, this is honoring God with your body. Now, for me, what that meant was bringing my belief system and my behavior together. It was bringing my belief system and my behavior together. See, I believed the right thing. My mind was correct. I never believed I should weigh 340 pounds. I never believed I should be a glutton. I never believed that. I knew that was wrong. I knew that was sin. You know, I was fine on my belief system. The problem was my behavior didn't match my belief system. And perhaps you're feeling that thing. You're in this room. Obviously, God has spoken to you in some form or fashion. By the way, some of you might be what's called skinny fat. What's skinny fat? Well, it means you look good on the outside, but you know the reality is your habits are that of an overweight person. You just happen to have this incredible metabolism or something's helping you out, but you know you're not having a bod for God. So God's speaking to you maybe about some things like that in your life, that you want to improve your health in that way. And the bottom line is, I mean, for me it was saying, okay, you got to bring your belief system and your behavior together. And that was called dedication. Dedication. See, I had pretty much dedicated every area of my life to God except this area. I mean, honestly, I mean, I was sold out to God. I was fully 100% committed to God, except for this area. But it was a big except. It was a huge, huge issue in my life. One of the reasons I feel like God is allowed me to have this platform is that honestly, I couldn't have cared less about this stuff. I mean, I wasn't just neutral. I was not good. I mean, a guy like me, honestly, you ask some of the people in my church for almost three decades, they'll tell you I would make fun of somebody like me today. I would mock that person. I mean, if I was sitting in that auditorium and I heard a person like me get up, I'd say, who let this, jerk in the room. I mean, we were at a men's conference where we were talking about eating good night. What kind of crazy deal we got going on here? This is whacked out, man. I mean, you know, that was my mindset. That's why, you know, I'm never offended by anybody's reaction to me. Never. And the reason is, whoever reacts like that to me, that was me. So it doesn't bother me. You can do whatever you want to to me, because I know exactly what you're like, because I was you. And so this is an area of my life where I was far from God, far from God. And I just let myself go. I mean, I just said, OK, I'm not worried about this. I'm just going to do what I want to do. And so, I had to come to a point where I said, okay, God, I'm going to dedicate this area to You. I'm going to honor You with my body. Now, one of the verses that helped me do that, which is perhaps my favorite verse of all verses, is Galatians 5.16 where it says this, "'Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.'" Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now notice that verse talks about the lust of the flesh. Now the lust of the flesh can be any and all sin, and we all struggle in different ways. But for me, the lust of the flesh, which was so strong, wasn't pornography. It wasn't alcohol. It wasn't tobacco. It wasn't any of that type of stuff. It wasn't bitterness, or anger, or things like that. The lust of the flesh for me was, I wanted to eat whatever I wanted to eat, and I was never going to exercise again in my life. That was where my flesh was just totally out of control, just totally, totally out of control. And what I noticed was the Bible said if I would learn to walk in the Spirit, I would not fulfill That means fulfilling, give in to it. I wouldn't give in to the lust of the flesh. And so I said, okay, I'm familiar with walking in the Spirit, but I never thought about walking in the Spirit when it came, listen, when it came to eating and exercise. See, I was very mindful of the Holy Spirit. Let me just kind of share a little testimony with you. When I speak every Sunday, okay, I make up one of these study guides. This is my style here, okay? This is just what I do, you know? It's what I do. It's just kind of how I'm wired. And it's a very, I mean, honestly, I mean, I've never seen a pastor put, I've seen little study guides, but most of them aren't nearly this thorough, okay? I mean, mine is detailed, laid out like this. I mean, I really think it's important, so I put a lot of attention to it. And so I tell you that because here's the deal. I try to take Friday off as much as I can as my Sabbath. And so pretty much by Thursday night, because it's got to get copied, put in the program and all that stuff. Intellectually, I could preach my sermon. That's the point I'm trying to make here, okay? Okay, I could get up at any time for Thursday night, all I have to do is preach. Okay, I'm ready. But here's the deal, okay? We have three services, 8, 15, 9, 30 and 11. I get up at five o'clock on Sunday morning, not to cram and get my sermon together, but to get me together. And here's my deal, I think about 1 Corinthians 2. I love it where Paul said when he preached, He wanted it to be a demonstration of the Holy Spirit and that the people would see God and not him. And that's my heart. God, use me today. God, fill me with your spirit. God, anoint me. God, give me power to speak. Show me in my life what I need to do in these areas. And that's just kind of my routine. It's been my routine for many, many, many years. And then, boom, I'm off to the church for that first 815 service. Okay, now here was my deal. Okay, 8.15, 9.30, 11, Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit. Now it's like 12.30. Things at the church have ended. It's time for Sunday lunch. Now, just call me what you want to, but it never occurred to me the Holy Spirit had any interest in Sunday lunch. Practically speaking, I was done with the Holy Spirit. It never occurred to me. See, my flesh did pretty good at the church. Pretty good, not all good, but most of the time, okay? Most of the time it was good, okay? And my flesh was fine. The problem was my flesh wasn't having a problem at church. My flesh was having a problem over at KFC, killing families consistently. I mean, that's where my problem was, okay? It was time for all you could eat. Literally, it was time to do whatever you wanted to do. It was that time. It never occurred to me that I actually needed the Holy Spirit more at Sunday lunch than Sunday church. Now, you might be more spiritual than me, but honestly, it never crossed my mind that I needed the Holy Spirit when I sat down to eat. Never thought about it. And I had to learn to think about a menu in a restaurant as a spiritual choice. That's why when I go to a restaurant, I pull out my phone. Usually I know what I'm gonna get anyway, okay, but I don't like to go in there just looking at the whole menu and getting all bent out of shape. But I pull out my iPhone, and I have an app on here called Fast Food. It's a free app. Looks like a cheeseburger. And I'll get my phone out, And I'll say, okay, let's see what they got here, okay? And this has, I don't know how many restaurants here, maybe 75 restaurants, okay? And if it's a chain or whatever, I can look up and say, okay, and if I get that, I know exactly what I got there. How many calories, I know all about the sodium. In fact, the other day, I like Ruby Tuesdays because I like to eat salad. I like this salad and they have this chicken chili soup thing. I just assume that's some good protein there. It's not that big a bowl or whatever. I never took the time to look it up. One day I said, I think I'm going to look this up. I found out that little thing there has as much sodium, almost, not quite, but almost as much sodium in that one little bowl of chicken chili, whatever you call it, soup or whatever it's called, as I need in a whole day. Just that one little bowl. I don't want to get high blood pressure again if I can help it. I don't need to be putting all that kind of junk in my body. I want to stay medication free as long as I can stay medication free. I know I've got to surrender the fork. to God if that's going to happen. I got to be willing to surrender that fork to Almighty God. I might like that soup or whatever it is, but I just don't need to put that in my body. It's just that simple. I just don't need to put that in my body. And the point was I've had to learn that a trip to the grocery store is a spiritual thing. You know, when I was growing up, I worked at Kroger, it's a grocery chain. I worked there for many years, almost went into management with Kroger as a career. And so I knew a little bit about grocery shopping, grocery stores and all that stuff when we got married. So I told Debbie, my wife, I said, you know, one thing I'll do is I'll do most of the grocery shopping. And I have all these years. And I've learned that, you know, when those doors come open, man, I gotta walk in the Spirit as I walk around that grocery store. I gotta learn, see, because here's what I've learned. I've learned if food gets near me, it gets in me. Okay? So here's the deal. I've gotta control what gets near me. And the main, you know, I eat out every once in a while, but most of my meals are at home. at least the evening meals. And I've had to learn, okay, if I'm gonna control what gets in me, I gotta control what gets in that kitchen. And I've discovered nothing gets in my kitchen unless I bring it in there. This is a, I mean, I don't know if you ever discovered this or not, okay? So here's what I've learned. I've learned the place to deal with this stuff, the spiritual battle with obesity, for me, isn't in the kitchen. I mean, honestly, okay, here's the deal. If it gets in the kitchen, one day it's getting in there. I mean, I can put those Oreos up there in the shelf and just say, and we'll put those way up there, you know, whatever. And I can pray, you know, Lord, Lord, You know those Oreos are up there. And Lord, I know they're up there. And God, I know You don't want me to eat that whole bag of Oreos today. Lord, God I just, at some point You're going to say, forget it. You know? Grab the Oreos and watch the Redskins game and knock the whole bag out or whatever. You know? I mean, why? Because it got near you. So I've had to learn that here's how it goes, okay? If I get it in the store and I put it in my grocery cart, Then I check out and I put it in my car, then I bring it in my kitchen, eventually it gets in my stomach. So I had to back that thing up and say, okay, this is spiritual grounds here, the grocery store, and I'm making spiritual choices in this grocery store. And I've had to control that. Now, sometimes we get urges, don't we, where we'll literally get in the car and go to the grocery store and buy it. But most of us are too lazy for that. Let's be real, okay? Most of us say, forget about it. I mean, I want the bag of Oreos, but they're not here at the house, and I'm just too tired to mess with it, okay? And we get past the craving or whatever. But every once in a while, all of us know what it's like to get in the car and go get the, you know, we all do that deal sometimes, too. We know what that's like. Does this make any sense to you? Have you ever heard anybody talk like this? I haven't, okay. I mean I had to learn to dedicate this area of my life to God. You say, why is this the most important key? I was on a radio show from Chicago early one morning this week and it's a Moody station and they had thousands of people listening to that station right out of Moody, which is where Moody Radio is, Chicago. And it covers like bunches of states. And they said to me, What's the most important key? I know the answer. It's this one. Why? Because, listen, we know what to do. Don't we? Most of you could get up here and you could give a whole lecture on nutrition. Right? Because why? You live in America. You know what's right and what's wrong, and you know what to do and what not to do. If I told you today, man, you're 71% water, okay? And you gotta drink some water to be healthy. Most of you wouldn't leave this in. You wouldn't go out, and if you're married, pick up your phone and call your wife and say, honey, honey, honey, you ought to hear what I heard today. I heard that you're supposed to drink water to be healthy. This was one of those life-changing days of my life. I mean, this has just been an incredible experience. Thank you for letting me go over to Whac-Em today. I learned about water, and honey, you're just, no. You know you're supposed to drink water, okay? But you say, I don't like water. I don't like it. OK. I couldn't care less whether you like it or not, OK? You've got to have this stuff to live, you know? A doctor told me if I drop you from a 10-story building, you. It is? Oh, no. OK. Thank you, Michael. Appreciate you marking those there. I haven't opened that up. Oh, my goodness. I mean if I drop you from a 10 story building it says you're going to splatter when you hit the cement pavement. Splatter because you are mainly water. You're mainly water. And you've got to have water to be healthy. So, it doesn't matter whether you like it or not. It's irrelevant. Are you going to dedicate yourself to God? You know? Are you going to give God that area of your life or not? I mean, you know, just go ahead and, you know, just dehydrate yourself, you know. You know, just go ahead. I mean, just say, you know, act like your brain doesn't need water to function and you'll be acting like that before long or whatever. I mean, dry your old brain out or whatever. You know, put a bunch of lotion all over your body and the lotion goes in your pores, goes in your bloodstreams, all floating around your body. Maybe you ought to just drink some more water, okay? Boy, we're having a good time, aren't we? Okay. Listen, if we all just agree to this one, we can walk out and leave. We're done. Because we know what to do. We know we're supposed to exercise. We know we're supposed to eat right. We're just not doing it. See, I had to learn that my body was not for the gratification of self. My body wasn't for the gratification of self. Philippians 3.19 is a verse that really convicted me. And it talked about a group of people on that first line. It says, they're described as whose God is their belly. Whose God is their belly. That was a perfect description of me. I was an idolater. I was an idolater. My belly was my God. I knew this was sin in my life. I knew this was wrong, and I wasn't willing to change. I wasn't willing to repent. I wasn't willing to do anything about it. That is nothing short of idolatry. nothing short of idolatry. And I had to learn that my body wasn't for the gratification of myself, but my body was for the glorification of God. It's for the glorification of God that I was created to glorify God. And Paul, like he said, he wanted to magnify Christ in his body. And he said, for me to live is Christ to die is gain. Notice the connection between the magnified Christ in my body, and for me to live is Christ to die is gain. I never till I got into this and really started thinking about it, made the connection here. He's magnifying Christ in his body, and the next verse says he wants to live like Christ. Remember what Christ was like in his body? 40 miles in one day. So guys, the first thing is dedication. Just put yourself on the altar, give your body to God, say I'm going to honor God with my body. Second key was inspiration. Motivating yourself for change. Now this is so important because it's not easy to change. Remember I said earlier we're creatures of habit, we've trained our taste buds. The reason we crave what we crave. See, here's what you gotta realize, your taste buds can crave lots of things. Do you know what John the Baptist ate? The Bible says in John chapter one? He ate locusts and wild honey. Now, how many of you eat locusts? Raise your hand. Google it, people in the world do eat locusts. Literally, they do. Okay, they do. I don't eat locusts. I don't ever think about eating locusts. There's no locusts in my kitchen, okay? How could John the Baptist eat locusts when it sounds gross to me? How could people in the world eat locusts when it sounds terrible to me? Taste buds. Taste buds. We start craving things. We start wanting things. Your taste buds are not stuck for life. There wasn't any? Exactly. Amen. Amen for ice cream. Amen for ice cream. Absolutely. In fact, I meant to stop after each key, but let me go and keep rolling on this one. Let me go halfway. I like Q&A a lot, so just if you have a question. But the point was, I'm thinking, okay, this is going to be hard. I've got some deeply seeded bad habits in my life. I knew how out of shape I was. When I went to the gym the first time and jumped up on the treadmill, it wasn't any surprise to me I could only do five minutes. Didn't surprise me at all. In fact, I was real happy I could do five minutes. I mean, it didn't shock me, like, oh, man, you're really in bad shape, you fat thing. No, I knew that. I mean, I'm thinking at the gym, everybody's going to be looking at me and thinking, like, this is crazy. But I didn't care, OK? I didn't care. And since I go to the gym now, I've learned nobody looks at you. They just look at themselves. So it doesn't matter anyway, OK? They're looking in the mirror and all that stuff. And the point was, I said, okay, I've got to figure out what's going to motivate me, because it's not going to be easy to make this change. And what I came across that helped me was John 10.10, and this is my motivation. It says, a thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." Now, look at this verse, okay. What is Jesus? Jesus is all about life, isn't He? He's pro-life. And He has come to give me life. And that is what motivates me. I want to experience the fullness of life. Like I said earlier in my testimony, I'm looking forward to heaven. I'm just not in a hurry to get there. I want to do something with my dash in the middle. I want to make a difference with my life. And guys, I think as men, we can connect with this whole idea of legacy. Legacy. See, I think about my grandfather. Let me tell you about my grandfather. His name was Homer Reynolds. Man, I've heard some great things about my grandfather, my dad's dad. I've heard he was a wonderful Christian. I've heard he was just a fantastic man, and just a really super individual. But you know what? He died when I was like three. And you know, I never had a relationship with him that I was aware of. I mean, I was three years old when he passed. But my grandfather had an issue in his life where he wasn't honoring God, and it was called tobacco. He was actually a tobacco farmer, okay? Southern Virginia, tobacco farmer. And he died, you know, of a heart attack. And of course back then, medical things weren't what they are today, but in my way of thinking, there's no doubt in my mind those cigarettes—he was pretty much a chain smoker—those cigarettes contributed to his death. Then I think about what if Homer Reynolds would have decided to, because he was a Christian man, you know, went to a great, good church. What if Homer Reynolds would have decided to not smoke? Maybe he could have lived longer. I don't know. Maybe, maybe, maybe not. I don't know. I mean, but you know, maybe he would have been around for me. Maybe I could have, could have some memories of my grandfather. Maybe I could have some thoughts about him. Maybe I could understand why people say so many nice things about him. But no, he decided, as far as I'm concerned, to be selfish, and just puff on those cancer sticks, and to dig his grave with a knife and a fork, not with a knife and a fork, dig his grave with cigarettes, and he robbed me of a relationship. And as far as I'm concerned, he robbed himself. of having a relationship with his grandson. And I think about that with my kids. You know, I mean, I want to be here for them. I got two grand dogs right now, but I don't have any grandchildren, you know. But, you know, I mean, they're talking about percolating one there, my one daughter that's married. And, you know, I look forward to that. And, honestly, I have a dream of not only influencing my grandchildren, but I want to actually influence my great-grandchildren. So at 53, just do the math. You're talking about a lot there, okay? But that's my dream. One day if I have great-grandchildren, honestly, I don't want to be drooling all over myself over in the corner somewhere. I want to be able to play with them and be with them and do life with them. I mean, why not dream that way? I'll get to heaven one day, maybe today, I don't know. God might take me out of here today. But you know, why not have a dream like that? Why not want that? I mean, why not desire that? I want to live. I just want to live. I want to be here. And I know if I'm going to be here, if I'm going to have a great fourth quarter, and with all those numbers I just gave you, I probably just said halftime. But anyway, not even halftime yet. But the point is, I mean, I know I've got to take care of my health. I've got to take care of my body. See, the other side of that is the thief, that's Satan, comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy. So, you got competing agendas going on here. Jesus has an agenda for you, and that's called life. Satan, the thief, has an agenda, and that's called steal from you, kill you, and destroy you. Now, here's the deal. He will use, now listen to me, he will use whatever will work to accomplish that in your life. See, if he can get us hooked on porn, and a number of us in this room probably struggling with porn, he'll use porn, yeah? If he can get you hooked on alcohol, if he can get you hooked on being bitter, you know, just filled with bitterness, he will use whatever will work. He will use whatever will work. He didn't need to get me hooked on those things. I was fully hooked with food. I was fully hooked with being slothful, being lazy. You know, he didn't need all that. He was stealing from me, killing me, and destroying me without anything else needed. That's why people a lot of times, you know, the culture of the church is we joke about it. And you know, our church, people wonder about our church. I mean, you'll go, we still have doughnuts around and all that stuff. I mean, you know, we're not going, I'm not a, you know, food inspector or whatever. I mean, we're not going around and whatever, you know, church is not buying them, but they're buying them. Anyway, moving forward here. But the point is, I mean, I mean, what is the point? I'm not even sure what my point is on that. But anyway, moving forward here, the point is, I mean, he's going to use whatever will work. So, oh, I know what I'm saying. Okay, so the point is, I mean, we, most people look at this and they say, what's the big deal? You just, come on, man, just calm down. You know, you're just way out of limits here. You're just totally out of control. But when you understand the spiritual dimension of what I just told you, you understand it is a big deal. See, those people believe somebody hooked on cocaine, that's a big deal. They're hooked on coke. Person who's a drunkard they're hooked on alcohol. That's serious stuff But you all that, you know eat too much or whatever. That's really not a big deal. You know, we're Christians It's okay, you know, we're not gonna talk about if you don't talk about it, you know, let's just do what we want to do but we understand what the enemy is doing to us and You know, I mean, there's not hardly any period of time that goes by in my life that people my age I went to school with and stuff don't die. I just had a pastor friend of mine a few months ago pass away. I went to him practically in tears telling him, I can help you. Please, let me help you. He laughed at me. He scoffed me. Again, didn't offend me because that's what I was like. He's dead now. Go to his Facebook. His birthday just came up the other day. Oh, we still miss you. We still, you were a great pastor. He's dead. He's dead. He dug his grave with a knife and a fork and a spoon. He's dead. He's gone. He's out of here. A great pastor, a great husband, a great dad, gone. Satan did what he does. This is serious, serious. And we've got to be inspired. What are some things that can motivate us? Number one is the spiritual benefit. This should motivate every one of us that are Christians. You will glorify God. I mean 1 Corinthians 6, 19, and 20 is probably the most well-known verse. Maybe you know it, maybe you don't. It just talks about our bodies are the temple of God, the Holy Spirit, and that we're to honor Him, we're to glorify Him with our bodies. And you know, when you're trying to have a bod for God and live a healthy life, you get to enjoy that benefit, that you know you're glorifying God. Page three, what are some other things? The physical benefit. you will maximize your body. And that's what I'm all about, okay, is just getting the most I can out of my body. Psalm 139, David says that we're wonderfully made. I like that statement, wonderfully made. And our bodies are miracles. Just absolutely miraculous. I mean, just think about your body. It's just, I mean, who can not believe that there's a creator? It just stuns me that anybody can look at the human body and think anything but somebody other than, you know, evolution created this body. It's just amazing. Just amazing. Our human bodies. And we're wonderfully made. So what does maximizing your body look like? Well, number one, you'll feel better. You'll feel better. Now this is a big one here, okay? Let me talk to you a little bit about it. Most of you that overeat are emotional eaters, even men, okay. I say it's almost equal, men and women. I've talked to hundreds and hundreds of people. Okay? Maybe thousands. And emotionally, it's a big deal. Now, when it comes to this area of my life, this is where I'm the most inadequate because I have never been, to my knowledge, people try to psychoanalyze me and tell me it's not true, and they're wrong, okay? I never ate for emotions, to my knowledge. I was a pure glutton, okay? Three cheeseburgers with lots of Duke's mayonnaise, and lots of fries, and a big bowl of ice cream. It just tasted good. I mean, it wasn't real complicated. I mean, one cheeseburger tasted good. Two tasted better. Three tasted even better. In fact, I was with one of our staff guys the other day. He says, we went to a conference together, and I stepped up, and I ordered three. It was three of us, okay? and I was going to, the church was going to be paying because we were at a conference. And I stepped up and I ordered three cheeseburgers. He thought I was ordering for the whole group. He says he will never forget he was stunned when I said, okay guys what do you want? That's a true story. I said, well, I believe you. I'm glad you finally worked up the courage to bring that to my attention. But anyway, I mean, that was my life. People say to me, though, man, it's my friend, it's my companion. I had one lady say to me, it's my lover. I said, baby, step back two feet, please, okay? It's my lover, she said. It's my lover, you know. People, we've gone through a lot in life, most of us. Life hurts. And people turn to food a lot of times to heal the pain, you know. And there's an emotional attachment to food. There's a comfort in it. So I honestly, I don't know much about that stuff. But here's what I know. I know that I'm not carrying around 480 sticks of butter. I still do. I need to get rid of some more butter, okay? But I'm not carrying around 480 sticks today. That's 120 pounds. Do you think I feel better? Yep, I feel better. But the difference is I feel better all the time. All the time. And if you're an emotional eater, and probably 90% of you are, I mean, you've got to make a choice. Do you want to feel better for a half an hour, an hour, or two hours? You know, then you've got to go back and get your next fix. Or would you like to feel better all the time? It's going to be hard to make the transition, but if you can just have that to motivate you and say, you know, I want to feel better all the time. And then you'll look better. And I say look better not just for vanity's sake, but testimony's sake. Because most of us, let's face it, no matter what we do, we still look ugly when we look in the mirror. So the older you get, the more ugly you look. But the point is, I'm never going to be this whatever in the mirror. So I do want to look as good as I can. But the point is, I'm also thinking about my testimony. See, when I say be like Jesus, I wanna make sure that somewhere, and I can't walk 40 miles in one day, so I'm probably not like Jesus when I should be, but the point is, I wanna have a testimony of being a person that's honoring God with my body. So that's a good reason to wanna look at it. Then, more than likely, you'll live longer. More than likely, you'll live longer. And maybe you won't, maybe you will, but statistics tell us the better we take care of our health, the longer we live. So there's D and there's I. Okay, we have about 14, 13 minutes left. Would anybody like to interject a couple questions here? Anybody got a question on D or I or anything else? Yes, sir. Right. Right. So the question is, Basically, as far as eating habits go, some people just eat a lot at one time, and then some people eat... Yeah, well, most, I eat six times a day. Most people lose a lot of weight eat regularly, okay? But it's all about, you know, your stomach's about the size of your fist. So why are you eating the size of your head, okay? You gotta get that in your mind. So the point is, who wants to be hungry? That's no fun, okay? So it's better to have portion control. And I still love, I struggle with a heavy evening meal because that's just been my lifestyle for so long. It's still the biggest meal, but it's not like, or close to what it used to be. So it's not, you know, you gotta start with breaking the fast. Breakfast is about breaking the fast. Most people that struggle with weight will choose to not eat breakfast thinking that's helping them when it's hurting them big time. Your body has been While you've been sleeping, your body's been working all night long. It's been repairing things. It's been fixing things. It's been correcting things. It's been healing your body. You wake up and you say, forget you. I got to get skinny. So I ate that big steak last night and that big bowl of ice cream. So I think I'm just going to eat at lunchtime and lose some of the weight. Your body's going, whoa, baby. I haven't been eating for like six hours, eight hours, 10 hours. I'm not letting loose of this fat. I might not get anything later on. Okay, so I got to hold on to this fat. Doesn't work. Breakfast is about breaking the fast. It should be, I don't practice this, but the truth is, it should be the biggest meal of our day. It should be the biggest meal of the day, if anything. And the point is, we have to realize the importance of that, and getting the day started in a good way. If you can combine some carbs and some protein together, that will get you through the morning in a really good way. So you just need to keep that before you. But don't think about starvation. That doesn't work. That doesn't work. Yes, sir? So, you started off earlier about Christians being the most overweight. I kind of think, being a Baptist, even more so, but one thing I think about is because we have family values. Yeah. So, a lot of stuff includes family dinners. Sure. Wives at home. Absolutely. She's cooking up this meal. Yeah. Cooking your favorite thing. Yeah. Your mother taught her. Oh, yeah, definitely. So, you know, as men and husbands, we want to Sure, of course. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So the great question that is, you know, we're Christians, we believe in family values, you know, food is a big part of that. And that, you know, a lot of times our wives will fix us a good meal, and we don't want to disappoint them. So how do we handle all that? Okay. Couple things. One is, my mother was that in my life. My big thing as a husband is the food section. I buy the food, I cook most of the meals, I clean up most of the meals. Other than that, I get the award for the worst husband in the room. Literally. I'm 50. I won't go into all that. Anyway, moving forward. I'm good in the food area. I nailed that down. And so, you know, I cook a lot of the stuff, but my mother, you know, typical southern mama, okay, and it was hard, you know, when I started making these changes. And what I just had to start telling her was, it wasn't that she necessarily wanted to feed me that, it's that she thought I wanted that. And when my want to changed, and I started telling her, I didn't say, Mom, don't cook me anything. I said, Mom, I really have started liking this. Would you mind learning how to cook that or whatever? And she started doing that. And it still brought the joy to her life. And she still enjoyed it the most. And my mother now has lost a lot of weight herself. And they have a losing weight program down at their church, Thomas Robapp's Church in Lynchburg. And so I think we've got to think about that. But ultimately we've got to realize that We need to work our people skills, okay? But the big area for me is I'm still an old-fashioned pastor. I actually make home visits. I go in people's homes. I love it. I can do it constantly. You learn so much about a person when you go to their house that you don't learn otherwise. So I'm still, at least one night a week, I'm in somebody's house. So it used to be, like when I pastored, I could get up, I used to like the big Hershey bars with the almonds. Not a Hershey like that. I'm talking about the 99 cent ones. And I could get up in my church, this is the truth, and say, man, I love those things. You know, you wanna get me something or whatever, I love them. I could do that, I would end up with 25, 30, 40 of those suckers within two days, okay? It was fantastic. Now, back when they had the Y2K, I got up and talked about it. I read this article about spam. Spam was flying off the shelf. All the computers were going to go crazy when the year 2000 came. I made jokes about spam giving you worms, and I grew up eating spam, and I prayed to God I'd never have to put it in my body again. Then they started buying me cases of spam. you know, as a joke. But anyway, that's kind of the life of a pastor. But the point was, I mean, I was used to going in and people say, oh, the pastor's coming. Most people never had a pastor in their house. Most of us never had, particularly in this area, most people from a Catholic background, they never had a priest come to their house. Oh boy, it's a big deal, you know. So I mean so they typically will try to have some cake or pie or whatever and and you know at first I had to get adjusted that I'm offended some people and said hey, you know, I'm sorry I just I'm just you know, I'm just I'm making a change here, you know And I had to retrain people and now I'll come down I'll come they got fruit there and I like these cliff bars now I have cloak bars laying on the table, you know, it's amazing. You know, just I just think we have to work with people okay, and I and communicate with people and things like that. So that would be my answer to that and realize, you know, Daniel in chapter one, when the king asked him to eat the food that was offered to idols, didn't say, I won't eat food. He said, Hey, let's do a test for 10 days. I'm going to drink water, eat this vegetable mix. Let's see how it turns out. Okay. It wasn't, he said, no, no, no. He said, can we have this instead? And that worked for him. Okay, one more question and we'll wrap it up here. Anybody else got a question, comments, not a remark? Yes, sir. I pretty much my life is high protein, low carbs, so I'm definitely a meat eater. I think it's great. And I know a lot of vegetarians. I mean, a lot of them. The guy I was talking to you about the one I ordered three cheeseburgers on my staff, he's a vegetarian. It's fine. I just, you know, the Daniel fast going around right now, people are doing that. And that's fine from a spiritual perspective, but if you're not gonna do it as a lifetime, it's all about the lifestyle. So I can't say anything bad about it. And truth is probably it's the best thing and I probably don't have guts enough to do it. So, yeah. Okay, all right, let's go ahead and hit E and we'll wrap it up. E is for eating, exercise, managing your habits. Okay, here's the deal. The secret to weight loss. You say, what is the secret? What is the secret? I mean, I saw a magazine I picked up this week. Check it out at the grocery store. It says, the diet plan you've prayed for has finally arrived. The diet plan you've prayed for has finally come about. What are they saying to us? There's a secret out here. And we just got to find the secret. And we order all this junk that's supposedly the secret. And we spend billions of dollars on the secret. Disappointed yet once again. What is the secret? Well, it's in eating and exercise. It's in managing our habits. And the secret is very simple. We have to eat less and we have to exercise more. Now, I personally have held in my hands, I'll put myself up against anybody. When I say anybody, I mean anybody. People all the time. Trying to I get stuff just shows up in my life boxes, you know Pastor, you know, have you heard about our secret? You know, we want you to endorse this secret. We wanted you to tell everybody about the secret You know that the lose weight they got to have this powder. They got to have this pill. They got to have this potion They got they got to have this and I'm all for I take supplements and stuff. I'm all for that's part of a health program Okay, but but when it comes to losing weight Here's the deal. Steve Reynolds has held in his hand many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many of these boxes. One day, I spent almost a whole day going from store to store just going and looking for these boxes. And you look at them, it says Ali Diet. I call it the diarrhea diet. You take this pill, you'll poop yourself skinny. You got to have the Ali Diet or whatever. I've held up these boxes, okay, and here's what I do. I turn it over to the back, and on the back, you know what it says? It says, why are you taking the pill, okay, this pill here, okay? You probably are going to need to eat less, and you ought to also start an exercise program. And you know what I say to them? That's right. I like the back of your box better than the front of your box, okay? In fact, I don't need your box, okay? Because a calorie is a calorie. And I know I'm not a medical doctor, and I know there's 1%, 2% out there that maybe have some deal going on with their body and metabolism or something. I don't know. I don't have all that figured out, okay? But I can tell you most of us here, if we'll just quit eating so stinking much and start moving our bodies, we're gonna lose some weight. That's the secret. That's the secret, which is not such a secret. It's not such a secret. I mean, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. It's the amount of energy, okay? If you burn it, you lose. If you don't burn, you gain. It's not rocket science. So, you gotta eat less. Now, eating less also means eat for your health, not your happiness. Eat for your health, not your happiness. So, you gotta get over whether something makes you happy or not. Well, I don't like broccoli. I just don't like it. Well, who could care less whether you like it or not? Okay, listen. I mean, listen. I mean, do you put, you know, Diet Coke is a lot cheaper. You can get a 99 cents for a two liter bottle of Diet Coke and put it in your car. That's cheaper than gasoline. Do you put Diet Coke in your car? No, you put gasoline in your car. Why? Because you know your car works better and works only with gasoline. So you know what your body needs, but you're not fueling it properly? You love your car more than you love your body. You love your stinking car more than you love your body, because you know what your body needs. And you got to get over whether it makes you happy, happy, happy or not. You know, food is for fuel. It's to fuel your body. That's the purpose of it. And if you start eating more of the good stuff, you'll start wanting the good stuff. You put an apple or a Hershey's bar in front of me today, I'm going to want and choose the apple. I'm not even, you say, you really want that Hershey bar, do you? No, I didn't, I really didn't. If you put me on a deserted island all by myself and you're never gonna find out what the anti-fat pastor eats, okay, and I'm out there all alone, I promise you I'm gonna pick up the apple, because that's literally what I want. Has it always been that way? Nope, okay, it is not. You know, but I've learned that I got to eat for my health and not just my happiness. And then exercise more. God made you to be physically active. And this is where most of us, because we live such busy lives, struggle the most. Okay, you know, it's harder. Exercise is harder. Okay, you got time to eat. You already have time to eat, right? I mean, so then you start saying, okay, I need some time to exercise. That's hard, particularly in Northern Virginia, Washington metro area, okay? We have energy to eat, right? I mean, you know, you hear people say, I'm so tired, I think I'm gonna eat and go to bed. The area, hardly ever hear them say, I'm so tired, I think I'm gonna just go to bed. Now they say, somehow or another, you get enough energy to eat. I mean, you just somehow push it through or whatever, okay? You know, you somehow make room for it. But when you're talking about exercise, you're already so tired. And where am I going to get the energy for that? See, it's a bigger change. Budget. Y'all got money for food. Sometimes you think you have to spend some money on the other things. Speaking of food, it's time for lunch, right? But T is for team. Building your circle of support. You've got to have a circle of support. We have a ministry in our church called Losing to Live. It's in lots and lots of places now. I can help you, we can help you start a group in your church, or if you, you know, we meet on Sunday nights at Capitol Baptist Church, we're just right off the beltway there at Gallows Road, and we'd love to have you go through a competition with us, or even more so, we'd love for you to take it to your church and get it started, you know, and we'll help you. It's an awesome ministry, and God can do some great things through it. But you need a team. See, every Sunday night, I sit down with a team. My team this time is called Pumped Up Pomegranates, And I sit down with them every Sunday night. They're my team. They're my support. They help me. And so you have to understand the value of your team. Understand the value of your team. Teamwork produces three things. Mutual success. Mutual success. It says two are better than one. They have a good reward for their labor. Mutual support. It says if you fall, you have somebody to lift you up and we all fall. There's mutual strength. Mutual strength. It says, two is great, but a three-fold cord's not quickly broken. And then participate in the losing-to-live-weight-loss competition. Participate. And so our motto is, don't try to lose weight alone. Alone. Join a team of losers. Deuteronomy 30, 19, we'll close with this. It says, I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have said before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, God says, choose life. Choose life. And I love this part, that both you, and I love this next part. This is what legacy's all about, guys. Both you and your descendants, or your family, may live. And so, our choices have an impact, not just on us, but our families. And I would, oh, I wish I could rewind the clock. I wish I could rewind the clock and raise our children differently. I blew it as a dad. And any of you guys that got younger children, I just, I beg you, I beg you, I beg you, I beg you. I just plead with you, you know, not to do what I did. Train them according to the Word of God and show them a dad that's honoring God with his body and not some horrible example like I was, okay? And thank God God's doing the work in our family in that area these days, but I should have done better.