Bodybuilding for Christians

SERMON INTRO:

What do you think of when you think of bodybuilding? Well, you probably think of something like Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? “I will be back.”

I don't really know much about it but it seems that the work that it takes to get bigger like that happens best in community, not in isolation, not all by oneself. It would seem to me better that way.

Well, this morning, we're talking about bodybuilding, but we're talking about the body of Christ. We are the body of Christ as the church of Jesus Christ. We are called to build this body if we are part of it. Christians are bodybuilders in that sense.

Living out the gospel starts with the family, which is the church. We're going to see today that living a life worthy of the calling to which we've been called means that we are to be equipped to help build the church, to reflect Jesus himself. We're called into ministry, all of us are called, but we often accept ministry kind of as a begrudging duty, something that I have to do, but not as it is a gracious gift of Christ.

We know that like bodybuilding, ministry is hard work, it demands sacrifice, but in the case of this kind of bodybuilding, there is a joyful benefit of this interdependence of the community as we together help build the body of Christ. And that's what we're going to talk about this morning.

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