If we could hear it, I'm sure there's some Ukrainian believers that have sung that song, no doubt, in their hour of need as they wait on God. Very difficult times, but praise God, there's peace in the midst of it. It can be well with our soul no matter what is going on. Okay, just plug it in and make sure, see if it's working right. All right, Cal was working at McDonald's, all right, and that's a fond place to my heart, because that was basically my first position, other than something else my mom arranged for me, was working at McDonald's from 14 years old. I got there and I remember, you know, learning, all the different positions in the grill. That was my first job there. And then learning lobby, learning to work the register, learning drive-thru, things like that. And I had a good buddy of mine, Jeff. Jeff became a supervisor and a manager at McDonald's. In fact, you know, we had these kind of nice uniforms back then. Calum, you would have liked these. They're kind of striped, button-up, you know, real nice caps and everything. And my mom made us go and get a professional picture with our gear on, my brother, myself, and my best friend. You kind of get an idea of my upbringing there a little bit. And we still got that picture. I see it floating around every now and then and just bringing back a lot of memories. But one night I was working the drive-thru and taking orders. And a guy pulled up, teenagers I think, or college age young people, and the man just, as he spoke, he was obviously intoxicated. And I'm sitting there taking the order, and I think, man, this is not good. This guy is totally drunk, and he's going through drive-thru here. And in hindsight, I look back, and I think the guy was faking. I think it may have been kind of a put-me-on type thing or something like that. But it really concerned me so much so that I went to my manager, Jeff, and I said, Jeff, there is a guy in drive-thru. He is absolutely on something. He's drunk. Something's going on. And so Jeff said, okay, so they actually pulled him into a side bay, called the police, police came and found out the guy was fine. And I, again, I don't know exactly what happened with that, but what I do remember is I felt horrible. I mean, I had thought the guy was intoxicated. I was convinced he was. I said it to my good friend. He took my word, and this happened. I went home to my house, and I was just kind of feeling really badly about that. I felt very much ashamed by that. I was reading in 1 Corinthians 3. in my Bible just trying to seek some encouragement. And it says this in verse 8 of chapter 3, it says, I've laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon, for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, and then there's, it's a comma, and then the rest of the list is not as good as the things that have just been listed. The rest of the list is wood, hay, stubble, Every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire. And the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. And you know, as I just got into that situation, and Daniel, I hope tonight as I preach, I don't preach on anything that you're gonna be preaching on in my RD. All right, good. He's gonna make me nervous tonight. Every time I look at him, I'm like, you preaching on this? Daniel's preaching Sunday morning, Sunday school, Sunday morning, and then Wednesday night. We're looking forward to it and praying about it. But you know, that scripture, he's just looking at that. I was looking at that and thinking, you know, I was ashamed tonight before my boss. I felt like I let him down. But you know, it's gonna be so much worse for somebody to, in glory, someday to bow their head in shame and think, man, I feel so badly that I let God down with what God had given to me in my life. I didn't live my life for something of value. I didn't live my... life for something that was worthy. My life verse is Philippians 1.20. According to my earnest expectation, my hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed. But that with all boldness is always, soon also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. You know, I don't want to be ashamed at anything that God has for me. Whatever stewardship, last week we were talking about the stewardship that God's given to us, or maybe Sunday, and whatever that stewardship is, we want to be able to go before God and say, God, I was a good steward of this. I live my life for things of value. And so you remember last week, We're looking at choose to live your life for worthy things, things that are worthy of your attention, things that are worthy of your focus, your time, your investment. And so to ask ourselves tonight, am I living my life for something of value, something that is worthy, a worthy thing, all right? So let's pray, and then we're gonna review a little bit from last week and then jump in to our study tonight. Father, I do pray as we come to the Word of God now that the Spirit of God would undertake to guide in every aspect of our time together tonight. Father, I thank you for each one that's here tonight. And Father, I believe this, that the Spirit of God intends to meet a need in every person's life through the preaching and teaching of the Word of God. And Father, it's like sitting down at a meal. You expect everybody to get what they need. And Father, this is our food. And I pray, God, that it would be well presented, as best I can, but by the Spirit of God in the hearts of God's people, that the Word of God would have free course, that nothing would hinder it tonight. But Father, that you speak freely to us. And Father, I can't speak without your enablement. We can't listen without the same. And so we ask that the Spirit of God would be the enabler tonight in everything that's said and done. Father, we pray for the kids tonight and their class. We pray that you bless that class. We pray that The hand of God will be very evident. Lord, thank you for each one again. And Father, may your spirit minister grace that class right now and guide Mrs. Schor as she speaks and guide the kids as they listen to the word of God. And so thank you for your help for these times. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen. All right, so choose to live your life for worthy things. And last week we looked at obtaining a worthy goal. And I'm not gonna re-preach it tonight, but I just wanna refresh our minds. We talked about preaching the whole counsel of God to whatever our audience is that God's given to us to give the word of God to. It's verse six. If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, the full counsel of God, all things good and the bad to us, our human ears, thou shalt be a good minister. And if I do that, and I get into the word of God, and I don't just take the things that I like and that I appreciate, but I take everything that maybe steps on my toes a little bit, and maybe touches some things that my flesh likes, if I'll embrace that, that's gonna be good for me, because I'll be a good minister of Jesus Christ. And it's gonna impact my life, as it says in verse six, I'm gonna grow in God's word, nourished up in the words of faith, right? A balanced diet, not just eating the things that I like to eat, but eating it all. Taking it all in and letting it benefit me. Established in sound doctrine. It says, and of good doctrine. So that you can say, this is what God says. And it's not my opinion. I could take you to the Bible and say, this is, thus saith the Lord. Here it is. This is what God says about that. Mature in understanding that, you know, where unto thou hast attained. We don't expect somebody to come to our church and be instantly a mature Christian. Why? Because it takes time. There's a process of time from salvation and growth to maturity. People grow at different rates. We ought to grow as quickly as God allows us to grow as we get in the Word of God and obey the Word of God. And then on guard against false teaching. Verse seven, but refuse profane and old wives fables. So accept the word of God in his full entity, but reject anything that doesn't have foundation in God's word. So anything that's just religion or just man's ideas or what men say, discard that because that doesn't matter, grab hold of God's word. So that's worthy, that's a worthy goal to say, I'm gonna preach the whole counsel of God to myself, to my family, to my environment, I'm gonna take it all on board, not gonna pick and choose and that's gonna benefit me, I'm gonna grow and I'm gonna get rid of anything that has no foundation in God's word. Okay, secondly, Establish a worthy walk. Okay, now here we go this week. So, obtain a worthy goal, establish a worthy walk. Ephesians 4.1 says, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. Colossians 1.10, that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 1 Thessalonians 2.12, that you would walk worthy of God who has called you unto his kingdom and glory. So the worthy walk has to do with our behavior. I might say to my kids, now remember, you're going to this event or whatever, remember you're a Shore. And you're representing the Shores. And so walk worthy of a Shore. Guard our name, guard our testimony. And so that's the idea. And your behavior in your department do that which is good, which is worthy. And we're gonna get into our text here, but first let me say this about a believer's walk in our representation of Christ and his name. Let me just give you some examples of our walk. So for example, believers care for God's servants. That's something that ought to be a part of our CV as a Bible believer, that we're given to hospitality, especially for those that are God's servants. Paul spoke about Phoebe in the book of Romans, in chapter 16, and he actually sent his letter to Rome with her, and he says to the church there, receive her, Phoebe, in the Lord as becometh saints. What looks good for a saint or a believer? That ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you, For she hath been a succorer of many, and of myself also." She's nourished us and encouraged us and strengthened us, so be a blessing to her, right? Give hospitality, as becometh saints. Now, when the Bible says saint, it just means somebody that's saved, somebody that's accepted Christ. We are saints, okay? It's not what the Catholic Church teaches about sainthood or anything like that, but it becomes a saint, a believer, to be somebody that's hospitable. Believers ought to stay away from sinful living. Ephesians 5.3, but fornication, sexual impurity, and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as becometh saints. So if you're a believer, you ought to be somebody that is a morally pure person, which would be distinctly different from the vast majority of people that are in the world. Believers ought to unite together for the cause of Christ. Philippians 1.27, only let your conversation, your lifestyle, be as it becometh the gospel of Christ. "'that whether I come and see you or else be absent, "'I may hear of your affairs, "'that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind, "'striving together for the faith of the gospel.'" So what makes the gospel look good? What becometh the gospel? As you represent the gospel, how should you look? United, right? A church ought to be strengthening each other, encouraging each other together in the gospel ministry. And again, believers aren't to be characterized by sin, Titus 2.3. They age women likewise that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things. Okay, so holy living, we expect in the older women of the church not to be drunkards, not to be slanderers and saying things that they ought not, but to be as becometh somebody that is a believer. Okay, can a believer live contrary to these principles? Yes. Should they live contrary to these principles? No. Okay, so it's not, you know, you get saved and automatically your life's just gonna be like this. I gotta decide to be like this. I gotta decide that I'm gonna live this way and obey God. Excuse my voice tonight, just got something going on with it. Okay, the prime minister can either honor his office or dishonor it. The president, the royal family can either honor their position or they can dishonor it. We understand that. We certainly have seen things like that even recently. And so we need to walk worthy as God's children and honor the position. So we're gonna look at two areas of our walk tonight. It's gonna be our physical walk and then our spiritual walk are the two things that we're gonna consider. And so letter A, be physically disciplined. Be physically disciplined. Let's see if this helps. Okay, so it says, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness, verse seven, and then verse eight, for bodily exercise profiteth little, okay? And I'm gonna start with the physical side, and I'm just gonna, I'm gonna edit the text a wee bit. I'm not gonna give a full phrase. I'm gonna give a partial phrase on purpose here. Bodily exercise profiteth. True, you see it there? In the word of God, bodily exercise profiteth. Okay? And so this verse assumes that people do exercise and we certainly see that as we look around, we'll see that people are out there exercising, doing different things. And it's gonna be an argument that goes from physical to spiritual. But I wanna start with the physical first. And so I can rightly say tonight, that you ought to exercise physically, that that would be a good thing, and I think we can even argue that it might be a biblical thing, as I'll seek to present to you here, all right? And so, God gave us a body, and we ought to take care of it. You agree with that, all right? It's a stewardship, like we talked about, something that God has entrusted to us. You know, the Lord's physical body was literally prepared as a sacrifice for him to offer on the cross for you and I. I mean, that was a physical offering that he had to give for our sins. Hebrews 10, five says, wherefore, when he came into the world, he said, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared for me. All right, so that body was a sacrifice physically that the Lord Jesus Christ gave for our sin. Now God's prepared us a body as well. And so we have a body, and the Bible does say, Romans 12, one and two, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And that ties into both aspects of what we're talking about tonight, because we're talking about physical and spiritual. They're both there in that verse, but what you're offering is your body. And what know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God. You're not your own, you're bought with a price, okay? So this is a temple. And so I think I could say tonight, biblically, that this body is something that we need to guard for God and protect for God, even our physical body. And so I'm gonna give you some ideas, things that can hurt our body. Okay, smoking, smoking. Does the Bible say any word, thou shalt not smoke? If somebody starts smoking, put them out, because there's a fire there somewhere, right? Thou shalt not smoke. But what do we know now about smoking? Well, smoking causes cancer. All that, that's not good for your body. So what would we say about smoking? We'd say smoking is sinful. But why is it sinful? Because it's abusing the body that God's given to you. All right? Now, alcohol, the Bible has more to say about that. All right, drunkenness clearly is sin. And when the Bible speaks about wine in a bad way, wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. Okay, so there's more we could say about alcohol or drug addiction, things like that, controlling substances as being bad things. Gluttony, can I preach against gluttony? Biblically. Yes, I can. I mean, I could go to the Word of God and the Word of God speaks about gluttony, laziness. Does the Bible speak about that? Yes, it does. And so, we can tie all these things in. I could probably put in there as well, bad diet and lack of physical discipline. It's bordering on sinful because why? It impacts my physical body. And so these things all have that in common. And so let me just give some statements, generic statements about the reality of if I don't physically exercise. And by the way, I'm not saying tonight that we all need to go out and start pumping weights and running marathons. Things like that, but on some level, it'd be good for us to be physically disciplined. Why? Because if I'm not physically disciplined, I'm physically weak and I'm likely out of shape. I'm at risk of heart disease, diabetes, other things that are more at risk because I'm not getting proper exercise. I could have aches and pains because my muscles aren't as strong to be able to handle things maybe that I need to do, and I might be limited in what I can do because of that. People have different metabolisms, understood? All right? I'm sorry, I was at the doctor, and I shouldn't tell you this, maybe, because you're thinking I'm bragging. I'm not bragging. I want to gain weight. All right? I'm at the doctor, and she says, how does she say it? You got a good metabolism or something like that? I said, yeah, from when I was 16 until now, my weight is like the same. All right? I'm not, I absolutely am not bragging. People don't understand. You know, it's just like I can't gain weight. That's the way God made me. But you know, there's a difference between the fact metabolism can be different from different people, but if I'm somebody that eats a box of Krispy Kreme donuts and it sits around all day, You know, I'm not exactly caring for my body, get what I'm saying. That's different than metabolism because I understand there's some people that just really struggle with things like that. Does that make sense? I totally sympathize with that, understand that. We can exercise and sometimes can't have maybe the weight we desire, if that makes sense. Okay, but one of our primary stewardships, a point I want to emphasize, which God has given to us is our physical body. And so I decide when my body gets out of bed, I decide what I'm going to eat and put into my body, the activities that I'm going to do. And I only have one body and I need to take care of it because with that body, what do I do? I serve God. And so it's very important that we care for that. So God gave us a body, we ought to take care of it. Secondly, and this point is important as well for the biblical aspect of it, successful self-discipline is necessary for successful spiritual discipline. So my physical discipline impacts my spiritual discipline. I said to some, I think Daniel and I have talked a little bit about running and stuff like that, but I run to help discipline my flesh. Now, when I turned 40, I decided to get back out running. I don't know why, I guess I was starting to kind of feel older, and so I decided to get back running. But I don't run, and I've shared this with the church, I don't run because I like running. I run because of the reasons that I want to share with you. I want to be in good shape. When I get up here and preach, you might think, well, preaching's easy. Well, come up and try it. It takes a little bit of energy to get up and preach. It takes some energy to get up and lead singing. It takes energy to get out and do flyers and the different things that I do in my evangelism and things. And so I want that energy that I get from exercising. I also want to maintain a physical discipline that makes my body do something it doesn't like. Because to be honest, I don't always like running. I don't always like exercise. Some mornings, I don't feel like running. And these guys, you guys run, is that right? So you don't feel like running, what do you do? Well, if you're gonna do it, you gotta run. You gotta get out and you gotta make your body do something it doesn't wanna do. I don't love running in the dark. You should see me. I've got, I mean, I've got the thing that comes around. I got the light on my back, light on my chest, and I've got the high-vis yellow. It's great. You know, it doesn't look cool at all. It's probably good that it's dark, you know, when I'm out there running. I don't really like running at dark. I don't love running in the wind, in the rain, in the snow, but sometimes, I'll tell you this, I don't run on ice. I'm too old for that. But otherwise, you just gotta get out there and make your body do something it doesn't want to do. Again, some people, Cycle, some people walk, some people swim, some people lift weights, you know? There's a bunch of different things, or maybe just they're more active during the day, they get enough exercise just in their normal routine. But there is spiritual benefit, I believe, and I wanna emphasize this, in a biblical principle in doing an exercise discipline, okay? Because when you're doing an exercise discipline, you might feel like this. You're killing yourself. It's horrible. Your body's screaming at you, stop. This is bad for me. But you know there's a biblical principle that says that in a sense that's what we're to do to our body. The Bible says in Romans 8.13, and let me give you a word before I share these scriptures. The word mortify in the Bible means to kill. It's to put to death. Romans 8.13 says, for if you live after the flesh, you shall die. But if you eat through the spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. Put your body to death. Make your body do what you say to do. Part of a way to help with that is to say, I'm gonna do this even though I don't feel like doing this. I know some people when they got ready for the situation in China and the crackdown against Christianity that they knew would come, they took cold showers. because they knew they're gonna go to prison and that's what they're gonna get in prison. And so they prepared their body ahead of time. All right, that's mortifying the body. Colossians 3.5, mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth. And this is talking about sin, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, covetousness, which is idolatry. And if I can discipline myself on a physical level, I can discipline myself on a spiritual level. I can say that that's not gonna happen. I'm not gonna go there, not gonna do that. I'm gonna keep my body in control. Galatians 5.24. They that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lust. And so again, that's the idea of my body is dead. It is not my master. It doesn't tell me what to do. I tell it what to do. You're going to get out of bed. You're going to go do this, you know? And that self-discipline on that level is good for me spiritually. Paul said this, I die daily. All right? And so physical discipline. is a really, really good thing and a worthy walk has that aspect of physical discipline. Okay, so be physically disciplined and then be spiritually disciplined, spiritually disciplined. Okay, so I just spoke about the importance of physical discipline and somebody here probably noticed that I didn't say bodily exercise profiteth little. And you might say, Pastor Ben, why'd you waste so much time on emphasizing this if it's little? Well, you're right, it says that, or we're right to read it that way, but it's a comparison. And I wanna show kind of the idea of the comparison by looking at another comparison that the Bible gives, okay? It's a comparison statement. It profits little, and it's gonna compare it with something. Luke 14, 26. If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. All right, so the Lord says, if you want to follow him, you got to hate your wife, you got to hate your parents, got to hate your kids, got to hate your life. All right, question. Should I love my wife? Yes, I mean, doesn't the Bible say that I'm to love my wife even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it? Am I not supposed to honor my parents? Isn't that the Bible command that I'm to reverence them? And so with that, certainly there'd be affection that would be part of that. And so we can understand the Bible is clear about that. So what is it saying? It's saying this, if that love for that person, my wife, my children, my parent, myself, if that exceeds my love for God, then I can't be a disciple. So in comparison with my love for God, my love for my family would be hate. Does that make sense? It's not that it's not love, it is love, but in comparison, God first, God first. And so, again, as we come to the scripture, I think it's important to point out, this is not the text that you need to pull out and say, well, Pastor Ben, bodily exercise profited little, so I'm just not gonna give anything to this idea of physical discipline or exercise, because the Bible says there's not profit to that, that's not what it's teaching, it's teaching this. that as the bodily exercise profits, and I would argue this, it profits much. And that's why I really want to emphasize that. Why? Because what spiritual discipline does, it profits much more than much. I don't know how to say it. Exceedingly much. Okay, and so the spiritual discipline is the great thing. And so what should we do? Well, practice personal holiness. Verse seven, it says, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness, rather unto godliness for bodily exercise profiteth little. Okay, can you physically exercise without a routine? Maybe. But you know, really good exercise is a routine, isn't it? It's something that I do daily or every other day or so many times a week. And if I really get into that, then I'm really exercising to the benefit of myself physically. And if you're going to do that, You might want to join a club. You might want to get some accountability in that. You're going to get some encouragement from that club. Hey, keep on. That's good. Glad you're exercising. That's great. And if you keep your routine, you're going to get stronger. If you miss your routine, you're going to get weaker, and you've got to get back into your routine. And sometimes things are going to stop your routine. Sometimes illness comes, or like I said, the weather, things like that. It stops, and you've got to overcome that and get back into that. to be physically disciplined. I say that to say this, to be spiritually disciplined is the same. Somebody's not going to be spiritually disciplined if they don't have a spiritual discipline routine, as it were. So maybe join a club in that sense, obviously the church and that encouragement, that faithfulness and being there and having other people saying good on you, that's great, keep it up, you're growing, I'm seeing you, you're doing better as a believer. And then some other basic things, let me just give you some ideas about some good disciplines as a believer. Start your day with either prayer, Bible reading or both. Exercise thyself rather into godliness. So get right in the word of God, get right on your knees in prayer and seek the face of God. Maybe meditate on a portion of God's word during the day. Take some scripture with you and keep it in your mind so that you're chewing on it, thinking about it during the day. That'd be a good part of a spiritual discipline. Guard yourself from sin. And if you sin, deal with it immediately, right? That's the best way to be on guard against sin. Be on guard against sin, don't sin, but if you sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Avail yourself of Christ and get right with God. That's a good spiritual discipline. Read the Bible together as a family. or as couples. Take that time daily. Say, no, we're gonna have this time to read the word of God and to pray together. Memorize scripture. Our family has a scripture memory program that we do that my wife made up and cut all the verses up. And every morning as we meet for our family devotions, one of the things that we do is we quote scripture. And on certain days of the week, certain scriptures. And just keep reviewing those so they become things that we keep with us. You know, sometimes somebody gets kind of inspired, maybe around New Year's, and they say, I'm gonna get physically fit, and they do it, they succeed, and all of a sudden they're like, man, I've got energy I haven't had for 10 years, and things are really going great on a physical level. And they get excited about that, because they see the benefit of it is the same spiritually. If somebody get into it and say, I'm gonna get the discipline back, being faithful to the house of God, being in the word of God, and just letting that spiritual discipline work in my life, there is incredible benefit. And so, practice personal holiness, but then profit from personal holiness. It says, but godliness is profitable unto you, All things. Now, I'll say this, when I run, and these things actually make me feel like I almost have them on, I've got these headphones that wrap around my ears, they're bone density headphones that I wear. And I listen to the Bible, or I listen to preaching as I'm running, that's something that I do, so there is a spiritual aspect to actually what I'm doing, but let's just imagine that it's purely physical. Well, where does that benefit me? Just in life, right? Other than the ways that I looked at it, where there is aspects where it can benefit me spiritually, but just setting that aside, anybody that just purely exercises, the benefit is where? Just here. But spiritual discipline impacts this life and it impacts the next life. And so reaping benefits in this life, having promise of the life that now is. All right, how does godliness help me now? How does it help me now? Well, have you ever had difficulty with a can opener? Or am I the only one? I look at that gadget in the kitchen, I just can't figure it out. I have to hand it to my wife and say, help me please, because I hook it up and I just go like this and it spins the can or whatever, it doesn't do anything. But then she's like, oh, you got to push this button or something. You push the button and then it's like cutting, it's actually cutting the tin. And then it takes the top off so easily. It's like, wow, that's how that works. You know, God is the one that designed us. He designed us to work in a specific way. A lot of people are just trying to figure it out. But if they take and use their life, like God said, everything is going to work. Godliness is profitable unto this life. Why? Because God is the creator. He's the designer. He made it all to work. So let me just very quickly give us some ideas. Marriage, marriage. Husbands, love your wives. I already quoted this. Even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. You got a submissive wife, you got a loving husband. Do you know what you've got? You've got a good marriage. How? By being godly. Family, Ephesians 6.2, honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment, with? Promise. Man, who wouldn't want kids like that? That's godly kids, or what a blessing to a home to have kids that are in submission to mom and dad. Godliness is profitable. Community. Matthew 5, 43, Jesus said, you have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you. Pray for them which will spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. For he maketh his Son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Can you imagine a world where instead of cursing, somebody gets their toes run over and they just go, it's okay, God bless you. You know, I mean, I love neighbors like that. Godliness is profitable unto all things. Work. 1 Peter 2.18, servants be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward. Ecclesiastes 9.10, whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. Can you imagine having somebody that is just like, they're gonna, if you're a bad boss, they're still gonna get it done. And they're gonna work hard like they're working to serve God. Again, godliness is profitable unto all things. Government, 1 Timothy 2, 1. I exhort therefore that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all veteran and authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Russia speaks volumes right now to the fact that an ungodly ruler brings tyranny, but you can look around at other places that have godly Christian legal systems that are set up, great protections, great liberties, great economy. What's it based on? It's based on the Bible. Why? Because godliness is profitable unto all things. A church, I already mentioned that. Unity of spirit and all that. So you can kind of look at it and go, man, wow, godliness impacts everything. Everything. And so, what do I need to do? Again, I gotta discipline myself. Somebody's not gonna go out and run a marathon. or be physically really fit without saying, I'm gonna get into an exercise routine. It's the same with us spiritually. We gotta look at it and say, what can I add to my life and to my daily walk so that I can get spiritually fit? Why? Because godliness is profitable unto all things. But lastly, it reaps benefit in this life, it reaps benefit in eternity. It says, having promise of the life that now is and, of that which is to come. Can I be godly without having Jesus Christ as my savior? No. The first thing I need to do, somebody could, whatever, wherever their life's at, it's not working right. Until they get saved. As soon as they get saved, they've got everlasting life. That's in glory. Godliness is profitable unto all things, even the afterlife. I'm saved, praise God. But it's not just that, is it? It's that everything that I do for God, God keeps a record of it. We talked about it recently. If you give a cup of cold water in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, guess what? You receive a reward. And so if I live my life for God, godliness is profitable in all things. I say, man, I'm gonna get into this book. I'm gonna obey this book. I'm gonna believe this book. I'm gonna follow this book. Guess what? There's gonna be reward. And that goes back to my opening illustration. I felt so bad that night. I really did. I felt terrible. I was young. It was the dumbest thing I'd ever done in my life, I felt like. I was ashamed. I thought, man. I let people down. And as I read that scripture, I thought, I don't want to let God down. If any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, that's great. Praise God. Wood, hay, stubble, that's ungodliness. Every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire. God's gonna test it with fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. And it's not speaking about hell, it's not hellfire, it's not purgatory, it's that God's gonna take everything that we've done, and he's gonna test it, and the things that remain are the things of value. And I just wonder tonight, what do you got there? What's there? How many people are gonna shake your hand and say, man, you gave me a track, I got saved? Or how many, you know, in the tally book that God has, how many tracks have you handed out? How many people have you talked to about the Lord? You know, when's the last time you encouraged somebody, you thought, man, you know, I just care about my brother in Christ, I just wanna reach out to them, encourage them, that's what a good Christian should do. You know, are things like that, man, I'm just gonna live my life for God, I'm gonna lay up some treasure in heaven. Going to heaven's just the beginning. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, if it remains, test the fire, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. There's gonna be some believers that get to glory, they've got nothing. It's like being saved by the skin of your teeth, right? Now, again, I read that, I thought, I don't want that. And so tonight, I mean, can we look at our lives and say, I want a worthy walk. That's worth it, isn't it? Isn't it worth tonight saying, man, I want a worthy walk. So what do I need to do? Well, let's think about physical discipline because it is important. This is one body God's given to us. Let's use it to the best of our ability for God, okay? But in that physical discipline, it impacts my spiritual discipline, and I would argue, again, that you can't be spiritually disciplined without being physically disciplined. But to look at it and say, I gotta get in the discipline of reading the word of God. I gotta get in the discipline of spending time, real time, in prayer. I gotta get in the discipline of regularly doing evangelism. I gotta get in the discipline of dealing with my sin, setting aside my sin. I gotta get in the discipline of all the other things that I'm gonna be godly. I'm gonna be godly as a parent, I'm gonna be godly as a spouse, because it impacts this life, and it impacts the next. All right, so let godliness impact every area of your life. Let's pray. Father, I pray, may the Spirit of God touch the hearts of God's people. Lord, all of us need to be challenged in this area. I need to be challenged in this area. And Father, we can act like, well, it doesn't matter how I treat our bodies, but we know that's not right. We know that's not right. And Father, I think it would be right for us to say, you know, I need to be physically disciplined. I need to get up at a regular time. I need to be careful what I put into my body. I need to make sure that I get some exercise. Why? Because I'm a steward of this body. And this is the only body that I get to use to serve God. But far more importantly, Godliness is profitable unto all things. And Father, I pray for anybody that looks in their life and they think, you know, I'm not saved. And so that means this, my life is of zero value. Because it's doing nothing for eternity. And that's the truth, Lord. Now it's sad, and I feel badly for anybody that's in that position, but that's true. But all they gotta do is get saved. And then they could start laying up treasure in heaven. I think, Father, it was around the same time when I read this scripture that I looked at my life and I thought, you know what? I regret, I felt like I'd wasted years that I could've used for God. But I realized whatever years I had left, I could use for God. And Satan likes us to think, well, too much water's under the bridge, can't be godly because I've wasted so much. But Father, I pray, may the Spirit of God give us grace to look up and say, well, at least I'll have some treasure, because I've got tomorrow, and I've got next week, and I've got next year, maybe. And so I just pray, Spirit of God, would you speak to our hearts, would you help us truly to live our life for what's important, a worthy walk. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen. Amen, all right, we'll go to our prayer request. Let's do praises first. If you've got a praise from this past week, something God's done in your life, and you wanna share that, we can do that now.