P90x For The Soul - Bible Study Series

P90X for the Soul

Bible Study

2 Timothy 3:16-17

Series Introduction

P90X promo

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Bring it!

I had to show some of the promo for P90X because I find it pretty funny and a bit over the top.

P90X or Power 90 Extreme, is an extreme home fitness workout program that has sold over 2.5 million copies. It was developed by Tony Horton, a fitness guru who was the face of Beachbody fitness.

I know there are a number of people in our church who have done some of the workouts in P90X, and Laura and I have also done some of these workouts.

I obviously haven’t done them enough or on a regular basis, but this system is designed to help you get in shape physically in a systematic fashion.

Now, I think it is good to keep yourself in shape physically, even Paul tells us that “physical training is of some value” for us. So I want to encourage you to be exercising physically to keep yourself in shape and healthy. When we are physically healthy, we are much better able to serve with energy and passion and that is good.

But while physical training is of some value, Paul tells it is more important to train ourselves to be godly.

In 1 Timothy 4:7-8,

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he says, “train yourself to be godly. 8 For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”

Godliness has value in this life and for our eternity as well.

We need to grow in godliness.

Now we need to be cautious here lest we think we can be godly or act in righteous ways apart from the work of the Lord in us. We can’t.

We see in Isaiah 64:6 – that “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (NIV)

We can’t make ourselves be righteous or produce godliness in ourselves. When we try to do that, we can easily become legalistic, thinking that “our godliness” makes us better than others.

Paul tells us that we are going to see people trying to produce their own godliness, apart from the power of God and apart from applying the truth of God’s word.

In 2 Timothy, 3:5, 7 he tells Timothy that there will be people that have “a form of godliness but (deny) its power.” He says they are “always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.” (2 Timothy 3:5, 7)

Being a godly person ultimately has to come from the power of the Lord working in our life and be based upon the truth of his word, not what we feel may be “godly.”

Now while godliness has got to come from the Lord and we can’t produce righteousness and be godly in our own strength, that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t be doing anything.

Paul tells us in

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Galatians 6:8 that “The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

When a farmer sows a field, he prepares the field to receive what he is planting. And as a farmer cannot grow any of the seeds he plants, (that happens naturally as the sun shines, and the rain falls and waters the seed) he does have responsibility to prepare the field to receive the seed and to make sure weeds are not growing up and choking out what is planted.

In the same way, we need to prepare the fields to receive the gift of righteousness and godliness that the Lord wants in our lives.

This is where we have responsibilities to train ourselves to be godly. There are things that the Lord has given us to do so that we are in a place to be grown spiritually.

It is these things, these responsibilities, that can help us be in a place to be grown in godliness, that we are going to be talking about over the next weeks so that we can be prepared for the Lord to grow us spiritually.

I am excited about this because as we put ourselves in a place to be grown, God does amazing things. I am looking forward to the amazing things He does in each of our lives as individuals and in our life as a church.

So are you ready to get extreme because we are going to challenge ourselves in implementing some of these disciplines so we are training to ourselves to be the godly people the Lord wants to grow us into.

Are you ready?

Let me hear you say, “Bring it!”

Sermon introduction

Ok, so I want to ask you if you have ever had something in your possession that was so valuable and would have been so beneficial for you, but you didn’t even know it?