Keep Your Balance is a sermon teaching us how to achieve and maintain spiritual balance in our lives and that we find the perfect balance in Jesus Christ.

Key verses:
John 1:9-18

I’m going to ask you to take your Bible now and turn with me to the Gospel of John chapter one. I want to read to you verses 9 to 18. What we’re going to do this evening is a follow-up message to this morning, so if you didn’t hear this morning’s message you can probably go back and view it on Facebook or I don’t know if it is on YouTube yet, but it will be, or on our website, you can find that. It was talking about when you fall and tonight, we’re talking about keeping your balance and we need to have balance.

John chapter one verse nine, John writes:

John 1:9: “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”

John 1:10: “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.”

John 1:11: “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”

John 1:12: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:”

John 1:13: “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

John 1:14: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

Take notice of that last phrase “full of grace and truth.”

John 1:15: “John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.”

John 1:16: “And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.”

John 1:17: “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

Now you notice there two times in this passage John talks about grace and truth. At the end of verse 14, Jesus comes, the only begotten of the Father, “full of grace and truth.” And then in verse 17, “the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

John 1:18: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”

So, grace and truth are two opposing elements that are in perfect balance in Jesus Christ. And I don’t know of any better illustration that we can think of, the kind of balance we need in our daily life and our spiritual life than to find grace and truth in Jesus Christ.

Be Like Jesus

The ultimate goal of the Christian life is to grow to be like Jesus. It’s a journey like we said this morning that begins when we are saved and continues until life on earth is finished. What happens then? What happens when life is finished is that we reached that goal.

1 John 3:2: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”

We’ll finally be like Him when we see Jesus. That’s why the hymn writer writes, “It will be worth it all when we see Christ.” And so, we’ll be like Him when we grow. But in the meantime, there is this matter of spiritual growth. In Ephesians chapter four, Paul writes:

Ephesians 4:11: “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;”

Why did he give them these gifts? To whom did he give them these gifts? He gave them to the church and why did he give them? Verse 12 tells us:

Ephesians 4:12: “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:”

Let’s think about that for a moment. Why do we have apostles? We had apostles but nobody today is worthy to have the title “apostle” in the sense of the 12 apostles in the New Testament. Now, there are people who use that title; it means one that is sent out, and it does.

A good friend of mine, a brother, says he’s a missionary, so that makes him an apostle. In that sense of the word, it does, he’s right. But the apostles, the 12 that we talk about, were special men who had been personally trained by the Lord Jesus himself and had been eyewitnesses of the resurrection. We don’t have anybody like that around today. Nobody qualifies to be an apostle today, in that sense today.

But why were apostles given to the church? For the perfecting of saints, for the work of the ministry, and for the edifying of the body of Christ. Why were prophets given to the church? For the perfecting of saints, for the work of the ministry, and for the edifying of the body of Christ. Why are evangelists given to the church? For the perfecting of saints, for the work of the ministry, and for the edifying of the body of Christ.

Why do I bring that up? Because everything, and pastors and teachers, have the same description. Everything is for the building up of the church, the edifying of the church. Before I came to this church here, I was an evangelist, and I first came to this church as an evangelist. That was many years ago, decades ago.

Then I felt the Lord leading my wife and me to come here and I struggled with that. I said, “Lord, I thought you called me to be an evangelist and now we’re going to be in a pastoral ministry. What do we do with that?” The Lord took me to this passage in Ephesians chapter four and He said What is an evangelist supposed to do? Why do we have evangelists? For the perfecting of saints, for the work of the ministry, and for the edifying of the body of Christ.

Now, what are pastors supposed to do? They are given for the perfecting of saints, for the work of the ministry, and for the edifying of the body of Christ. So, He says, either the pastor or the evangelist is to do what? Build up the church. “So, you go and build up this church and I’ll tell you what to do next,” that’s essentially what the Lord said. “He spoke to you in exactly those words?” No, He did not, but through His Word, that is the message I perceived.

But then, this edifying of the body of Christ, what is the purpose of that? Well, the next verse, that would be verse 13 tells us:

Ephesians 4:13: “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:”

“Till we all come in the unity of the faith,” – so, we are supposed to be all unified in what? In the faith. What faith? The faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re supposed to be together in that. Every one of us is a unique individual and we are all going to have different points of view and different opinions about things. Many of us come from different cultural backgrounds if not all of us. Some of us come from different language groups. We’re all different but we are all to be unified in certain things and we are to be unified in the faith.

And so, until “we all come to the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God” we’re to grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Why? So, we can be more like Him. We’re to grow to know Him. “Unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” – what does that mean? We’re going to be perfect. We should be growing up like the one who is perfect, to grow in “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”

Going Off Balance

We’re to be growing, growing, growing to be more like Him. Why? Next verse:

Ephesians 4:14: “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;”

“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine” – I’ve known some friends like that and I’m not trying to be unkind to anybody. I hope it doesn’t come across that way. I think they are genuine believers. I think they trusted the Lord as their Savior, but they are blown about by every wind of doctrine, every new doctrinal trend that comes along and they go with that, or they go from church to church. There can be different reasons why people change churches.  We talked about that.

But I’m talking about folks that are going from one to another, to another, to another, and I know some folks like that. I talked to them, this is March, you talk to them, “Where are you going to church?” They say, “We’re going to this one here.” We talk to them again in June, “Where are you going to church?” They say, “Now, I’m going over here to church.” You talk to them in September, “No, I’m going over here to church.” They are just moving around from place to place.

“Well, don’t you think the Lord is leading them to each of those churches to be a blessing there?” No, I don’t. I believe they are blown about by every wind of doctrine. That’s what I think and by the sleight of men. You know people get offended and they get offended over small things. Sometimes they get offended over big things to be sure, but they can get offended over small things, and I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it many times.

I think I was telling you recently about this; I was telling somebody about it. I don’t remember if it was you or somebody else, I was talking to, but I told this recently to somebody. Back in Chattanooga, we were at Highland Baptist Church. The church was full every service – Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. How full was it? The auditorium seated 3,500 people and it was so full at every service that it was hard to get a seat there, it was a challenge.

I’ve been there sometimes when you didn’t get a seat. You had to stand up during the service. Just getting a seat – yes, there were chairs in the aisles and so forth. They should have done something about that. They did, they built a 6,000-seat auditorium. That’s another story.

Here’s the thing I’m trying to get across to you. Our pastor said a lady who had been there a long time – I think he said 20 years or more – came to him and said, “Brother Robison, I just came to tell you this. It’s my last Sunday I’m leaving the church.” He said, “I’m sorry to hear that. What is the problem?” You never know when someone tells you something like that as to what the problem is, and it could be many things.

But here is her story. She said, “I came to church this morning, and somebody was in my seat.” Is that a true story? It’s a true story. Now, is that something to leave a church over? No, it is not. That’s the sleight of men. That’s when somebody offends you. Chances are this person didn’t even know they were sitting in her seat.

I know what you’re thinking, “Just go find another seat.” I already told you it wasn’t an easy thing to do. It was not easy to find another seat. I don’t know where her seat was, let’s say it was right over here and there’s an empty seat there so she could have sat there. Let’s say it’s right over here. Well, that seat’s full she might end up sitting in the balcony. You know a lot of folks didn’t like sitting in the balcony. They want to be on the main floor. So, it’s bigger than it sounds like but still, not the reason to leave the church.

Now, “cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.” Who lies in wait to deceive? There are people who sow discord among the people, and they want to get you off course and hear me, they want to get you off balance. You know, once a person is off balance you can push him just about any way you want to.

A person who’s balanced is hard to move, but a person who is off balance is very easy to move. It doesn’t take much at all. So, folks are working to do what? To sow discord among brethren which does what? Get you off balance spiritually and then it’s easy to move you out of place.

Keep Our Goal in Focus

But in the next verse, Paul says:

Ephesians 4:15: “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:”

It is interesting that Paul says, “speaking the truth in love” because truth doesn’t always sound loving. We’ll explain that here in a moment. Truth doesn’t always sound loving, but we need to speak the truth in love. We can sound very harsh speaking the truth.

I remember hearing a story about an old fellow, a preacher, a street preacher. I have nothing against street preachers. You’re not allowed to do it in Delray, but there’s nothing against street preachers. It’s fine, guys go out on the street and preach. “Have you ever been around that?” Sure, I have.

This one fellow, he kind of went like this, he’d be out there on the street corner, and someone would be walking by, and he’d say, “You’d better get born again or you’ll be going to Hell.” You know what, that’s the truth. That is truth. Was he speaking the truth in love? He may have been. It didn’t sound like it, it sounded very harsh. But was he speaking the truth? He was. “I don’t like the sound of that.” A lot of people didn’t but he was still speaking the truth.

But Paul says, “speaking the truth in love,” so we “may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ” – what a wonderful thing the head of the church. These gifts – apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers – are given to the church for the building up of the church. But why are we building up the church? We are building the church because Jesus Christ is the head of the church. And what is our spiritual goal? To grow to be like Him. Grow up into Him in all things so that in all areas of our life we are like Jesus Christ.

I’ve been at it for over 50 years now. Am I just like Jesus? No, I’m not. “You mean if I met Jesus and I met you I wouldn’t mistake you for Him?” No, I’m afraid you wouldn’t. It would be great if you did, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t.

I want to help you with that because that is exactly what should happen. People should mistake us for Him, and I want you to understand that is our goal. But we have to keep growing. People grow at different rates. Not everybody grows at the same speed physically. Not everybody grows at the same speed spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and educationally. We grow at different rates.

We have to keep our goal in focus, and we must continually run towards the goal. Paul says, “I press toward the mark for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” We have to keep pressing towards the goal. If we were to grow to be like Jesus, we learn what Jesus is like and that takes a lifetime.

So, this passage we just read, John 1:9-18, gives us a great example of the balance in the Christian life. Take a look at verse nine if you would:

John 1:9: “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”

John 1:10: “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.”

So, our great Creator came into this world, but He was not received by the world, they didn’t recognize Him. Christmas time, I think we sang it this year or last year, but you hear the song sometimes around Christmastime, “Sweet Little Jesus Boy.” Does everybody know that one? Some of you do, some of you don’t. Alright, there’s a line in that song that says, “Sweet little Jesus boy, forgive us, Lord, we didn’t know who you were.” There’s truth in that. People did not recognize Him for who He was, and I want you to think about that.

I don’t read many novels anymore. I read but I don’t read fiction, generally speaking. I’m not against it but I have read fiction and I have some favorite books. One of my favorite novels that I ever read is “The Prince and the Pauper” by Mark Twain. They have made I don’t know how many movie versions of that, even one starring Mickey Mouse, but many different movie versions. I’ve never seen one nearly as good as the book. They all fall short of the book. Some of them are really entertaining movies if you want to look them up but they really fall short of the book.

The book is historical fiction. That means that some of the characters, not all of them, some of the characters in the book are real but the story is not real. The story takes place during the time of King Edward VI of England, which is about the 1540s.

There’s a poor boy who lives in London named Tom Canty. Tom Canty is out on the streets and one day he’s near the streets and wanders onto the palace grounds. A palace guard finds him, and he looks just like young Prince Edward. He says, “What are you doing out here majesty dressed in these awful clothes? Nobody can see you like that.” He takes him into the palace and gets him all washed up, cleaned up, and takes him to the prince’s quarters.

And there, the prince is there, and they meet. They look in the mirror at each other and they realize they look just alike. So, for fun, they changed clothes. The prince puts on the poor boy’s clothes and the poor boy puts on the prince’s clothes and they go out. And another guard sees this pauper boy and says, “What are you doing on the palace grounds?” and puts him off, but he puts the prince off the grounds.

Now, the poor boy, Tom Canty, is in the palace and everybody thinks he’s the prince, but he’s trying to tell them he’s not the prince, “We changed clothes for fun and I’m not the prince.” They didn’t believe him and said he was sick, there’s something wrong with him, he’s delusional, and doesn’t realize he’s the prince. They put him in his room and try to get him well.

Meanwhile, the real prince is out on the street dressed in the poor boy’s clothes, Tom Canty’s clothes, and this is the reason I’m telling you this story: He spends most of the rest of the novel traveling around England telling them he is the son of the king and people don’t believe it because he doesn’t look like the son of the king. He looks like a poor boy. He looks like an average fellow from the city streets. But there were a few people who actually believed that he was the prince.

The king died and they were going to crown the prince to be king. But Tom Canty is in the palace, and everybody thinks he’s the king but he’s mentally ill. What were they going to do? Crown this boy who was mentally ill and make him king?

Meanwhile, the true prince is out in the city, out in the countryside telling people, “I am king. I will get home and assume my father’s throne.” They don’t believe him. But a few did, just a few people believed him, and they helped him get back to the palace.

Do you know what happens? He is the king. He becomes the crowned king and those few people who believed in him were richly rewarded and given places of service in the kingdom. What does that sound like to you? What does that sound like? Sound like the Gospel story? It does, doesn’t it?

He came unto His own. The world was made by Him. The world knew Him not.

John 1:11: “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”

“Sweet little Jesus boy we didn’t know who you were.”

John 1:12: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:”

Jesus gives us a great example. Our Creator came into this world and was not received in the world. But those who received Him, are the true Christians.

Grace and Truth

Now, let’s go on, to verse 12 again:

John 1:12: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:”

John 1:13: “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

We talked about that this morning, being born again.

John 1:14: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

Jesus comes into the world “full of grace and truth.” Now, grace is the love and kindness of God, our Savior, toward man. Truth is absolute fact and authority. Let me give you one verse I hope will tell you the difference between grace and truth, Romans 6:23, most of you know it:

Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

“For the wages of sin is death” – that’s truth, that’s truth. “But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” – that’s grace. The truth is “the wages of sin is death” – because of sin we have to die. That’s truth. But grace is “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And you find all of that in one verse. But it gets better than that. You get all of that in one person, He is “the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Look at verse 17 again:

John 1:17: “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

Do you know what the law says? “For the wages of sin is death.” The law says because we sinned, we have to die. But grace says, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. But in Jesus, verse 17:

John 1:17: “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

John 1:18: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”

And that is it. Grace and truth are both found in Jesus – Perfect balance. Not good and evil. Not light and dark. There is no evil in Him, there is no darkness in Him. But grace and truth are found in Jesus and that is the balance that we are looking for.

John the Baptist declared Him the Great Creator, the Eternal God and he talked about His fullness. Look at verse 16:

John 1:16: “And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.”

What is His fulness?

Colossians 2:9: “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”

That’s amazing. I heard somebody on the radio this week and they were debating Jesus being man, being God. They were talking about that and said when we get to Heaven will we see Jesus as a man or Jesus as God? That was the question. Someone gave him a wise answer and said, “You’re going to see Jesus the man who is God.”

You see, the fact of the matter is, in Him, in Jesus Christ, dwells or lives all the fullness – verse 16, “And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” In His is all the fullness of “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” What does it mean, the word “godhead”? That’s the word in the Bible for the word we use “trinity”. In Him is “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” – The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – all in Him.

And so, you find here is that His fulness is what we all receive; when you receive Jesus Christ, you receive the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You don’t receive Jesus and then later get the Holy Spirit. Some people teach it that way but that’s not what the Bible says. You don’t receive Jesus and later get the Father. No. Jesus said, “When you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” So, we’ve all received grace from Him.

Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:”

Ephesians 2:9: “Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

The law is that perfect standard that God gave us to show us His standard and our sin. Paul writes that we would not know what sin was if we didn’t have the law. And we wouldn’t. We would not know what is right and wrong, we wouldn’t know what is truth and what is a lie. God gave us the law so that we would know His standard. And the law was given by Moses but grace and truth come by Jesus Christ. Grace forgives, truth convicts. Grace is kind and gentle, truth is demanding and inflexible. The only begotten Son is the revelation of God.

Strength and Beauty

Let me give you another verse, we’ll not turn there but hopefully will help you understand this. We’ve talked about grace and truth being in balance. Psalm 96:6, listen to it, in Sunday School this morning we looked at Psalm 97. This is Psalm 96:6:

Psalm 96:6: “Honour and majesty are before him: strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.”

Strength is not necessarily beautiful, and beauty is not necessarily strong but in Jesus, you find both strength and beauty in perfect balance. I like to look at flowers. Flowers in general are not very strong. If they get too much light or too little water, if they get other conditions happening, they wilt, fade, and they’re gone. Even under the best conditions, they don’t last a long time, in most varieties. Flowers are beautiful but not necessarily strong.

A rock can be strong but it’s not necessarily beautiful. “Preacher, I’ve seen some beautiful rocks.” Yes, you’ve seen some but rocks, in general, are not necessarily beautiful. They can be very strong. What if you had the strength of the rock and the beauty of the flower all together? We do. We find that in the Lord.

Honor is respect given. Majesty is respect demanded. Strength is forceful, beauty is delicate. But in Christ we find these words used in combination, “Honour and majesty are before him: strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.” Majesty can be cold; strength can be hard. Truth is uncompromising, grace is kind and beauty is tender and lovable.

But we must be strong in our faith and convictions. We must stand for truth and at the same time, we must show grace in our actions. That’s why in Ephesians, Paul says to speak the truth in love. We have to be balanced and we have to have beauty in our character. If we don’t, then we are not Christlike.

I could stand here every Sunday, and I could say, “All you sinners are going to Hell.” And that’s truth, but we need grace to come alongside that truth. We need to balance that truth with grace. “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” So, the Lord wants us in our spiritual growth, growing to be like Jesus, to be balanced – grace and truth, strength and beauty. Not grace or truth, not strength or beauty but both together at the same time. It takes some time and practice to achieve balance.

Achieving Balance

Chris, can you help me with this. I’m going to show you something here and we’re going to talk about balance. So, here’s the thing. We’re going to talk about balance. Now, if you don’t have balance, I’m talking about physical balance, there could be many reasons why you don’t have good balance, many reasons why you may fall and I’m not a doctor. You need to go see a doctor, let them figure it out. It could be a neurological disorder, it could be an inner ear problem, and there are many reasons why you may not have good balance. It’s not one thing.

I wish I could tell you, just do this and you’ll have good balance and everything’s great. I don’t know anything like that. But, if you are having trouble with balance, I’ll show you some simple things you can do to improve your physical balance.

I was teaching PE some years ago and was teaching fifth and sixth graders and these children did not have balance. It was amazing, the whole class did not have balance. So, I gave them some simple exercises to work on and you know what? In just a matter of weeks, they had balance. What are these exercises? Nothing impressive I’ll tell you that.

Let me show you. By the way, if you start doing balance exercises make sure you start in a place where you can catch yourself from a fall and if you do fall, don’t fall and hurt yourself where there are no sharp corners, no hard surfaces, and if you don’t have anything, don’t do this. Is that fair? Okay. I don’t want you getting hurt.

But just start with something simple. Stand on one leg. Bend the knee of the leg you’re standing on. Don’t stand stiff-legged, straight, you’ll lose balance. Bend your knee and just pick up your other foot a little bit and see if you can balance. That’s not hard and do that again until you can do it longer, longer, and longer. How long should you hold it? Oh, right away, if you could just do a few seconds, then do a few seconds and set it down. But eventually, you’ll want to hold it off the ground for 30 seconds to a minute.

“Well, how? Do I watch a clock?” No, I’ll tell you what to do. Turn your television on and wait for a commercial and if you can hold it up for one commercial, you’re good. Okay, see how simple that is? You don’t want to pay attention to the commercial anyway, so focus on your balance.

Your goal is to pick it up and stand like that (lifting knee to almost a 90-degree angle). Once you get there, you achieve balance. Fold your arms, pick your leg up and stand there and do it on the other side. That will improve your balance. Eventually, you can get to where you can kick that leg out and circle it behind. I’m not going to do this in front of everybody, but you can kick your leg out and circle it behind, bring it back in front and all that and not lose your balance.

“I can’t do that.” No, but if you practice it, you could. Okay, does that make sense? But again, if you’ve got physiological issues that are causing you to lose balance, this isn’t going to cure that. You need to talk to your doctor and find out what’s causing that. I don’t want anybody to go out and say, “I did what the preacher told me and I got hurt.” I don’t, please don’t do that, okay? So, that is physical balance.

Spiritual Balance

But what about spiritual balance. How are you going to get spiritual balance? Well, you’re going to have to balance with the simple basics of the Christian life. What is that? Get into the Word, let the Word get into you. Read your Bible and study your Bible. Then pray. You need to balance Bible study with prayer and then, memorize and meditate.

“What do you mean memorize and meditate?” I think you need to memorize scripture. I’ve known a few men in my time, not many, who memorized the entire New Testament and part of the Old Testament. I can think of four maybe five men in my lifetime who did that, not many people have. But it can be done.

You don’t need to do all that. What you can do is just memorize those verses that speak to you, those things that stand out to you. Memorize verses that have to do with the Gospel so you can use them to witness. I did that just this past week. I was talking to somebody about the Gospel, didn’t have my Bible with me so I quoted scripture to him. You can do that. But there are verses that are going to help you like this morning, we were talking about 1 Corinthians 10:13:

1 Corinthians 10:13: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

Now, there’s a verse that can help. Memorize verses like that. Balance your Bible study, your prayer, your memorization, your meditation, and then balance that with fellowship. You need Christian fellowship. You need to be with other believers, and you need to be around other believers.

Let me explain fellowship because in most Baptist churches it means we’re having cake and coffee after church. That’s not what we talk about when we say “fellowship.” Now, I’m not saying it’s wrong to do that because I like cake and coffee too, but the point is that’s not what we’re talking about.

Fellowship is what Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” That’s fellowship. Where you get together with one, or two, or more Christians and you are there to talk about Jesus. That’s fellowship. Now, you can do that, you can do that anywhere and have fellowship at your house, have fellowship in a restaurant, have fellowship in a park, you have fellowship wherever “two or three are gathered in my name.” But can any of you think of a really easy place to have fellowship? Church, that makes sense, doesn’t it? So, you need to have fellowship.

And then you need to be witnessing. You need to be giving out the Gospel. We take in scripture so we can grow in our knowledge, and we need to grow in our knowledge. We also need to be able to give out that knowledge.

There has to be a balance between physical calorie intake and calories you put out. Now that’s not all there is between weight loss and gain, there’s more to it than that. You take in so many calories a day, you need to burn close to that number and that’s balance.

Well, let’s talk about the spiritual realm. If I’m taking in scripture, taking in scripture, and taking in scripture, that’s good. Do I ever give it out? It is possible to become spiritually overweight. It is. Most people aren’t by the way, but it is possible. I mentioned I know four or five men who memorized the New Testament and I’ve known two men, one in Florida and one lived in Georgia, who sat home – by the way, both of these men had wives and children – they sat home all the time and studied their Bible.

That’s good, isn’t it? No, that’s not good. That’s not balanced. What’s wrong with that? Because that’s all they ever did. They didn’t go out to go to work. They didn’t earn any money to support their family. They didn’t go to church. They didn’t serve in the church. They didn’t go out in the street and witness to people with the knowledge they had. They just sat home and studied their Bible. I know two men like that. They were hundreds of miles apart and I’m pretty sure they didn’t know each other. They both did the same thing. That’s being spiritually overweight, folks. There’s something wrong there. That’s not a balanced situation.

Now, most of us are not in any danger of doing what those two men did. But the point I’m making is you balance those five things – the Word, prayer, meditation and memorization, witnessing, and fellowship. You balance those together and you will grow in a balanced way in your Christian life.

So, we have to work to improve our balance. I showed you a little physical exercise to help you improve your physical balance. Improve your spiritual balance. One of the requirements we need to develop in order to grow to be like Jesus is that we be in balance. And the way to keep from falling is to keep your balance and that’s so essential to what we’re trying to talk about pretty much all day today. It’s so you can keep your balance so you can grow up into Him, to be like Jesus.

~~~~~~~

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for blessing us. It is my earnest prayer that you help each of us to learn the importance of balance. To have in our life grace and truth and strength and beauty and honor and majesty. Lord, help us to recognize these qualities and characteristics in you and help us to develop them in ourselves.

Then Lord, help us to share grace and truth with others. Help us to speak the truth in love so that others may come to know you and grow to be like you.

Our heads are bowed, and our eyes are closed. We’re going to sing the hymn of invitation. As we say not always but often on Sunday night, if God has spoken to your heart, the altar is here if you need it. Father, bless and move in this invitation we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

---

Watch the prerecorded live version of the entire service and sermon, Keep Your Balance, on Facebook.

Keep Your Balance — Related Sermons

You may also want to listen to or view these sermons:

When You Fall

In the Midst of the Storm