Finding the Right Spiritual BALANCE

• Finding the Right Spiritual
• The Danger of Extremes
• Proper Balance in Life
• Being able to maintain our sense of balance is a fundamental necessity of life
• Evidence of Design
• We each have built in God-given balance sensors in our amazing human bodies
• Sign of Stable Health
• Loss of balance is a clear sign of mental or physical impairment
• Necessary for Comfort
• Our bodies sense even a slight incline or imbalance which can cause us discomfort and pain.
• Balance in Athletics
• Athletes understand the importance of a balanced position for best performance
• Proper Balance in Life
• Proper balance is essential to good physical, mental, and emotional health.
• Shouldn’t the same be true spiritually?
• Balance in the Universe
• Result of God’s Perfect Design and Faithful Supervision
• Balance in the Creation
• Psalms 147:1-5
– 1 Praise the LORD! For it is good to sing praises to our God; For it is pleasant, and praise is beautiful.… 3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
– 4 He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name. 5 Great is our Lord, and mighty in power;His understanding is infinite.
• From Greatest to Smallest
• The Evidence of Perfect Order and Balance is found in the tiniest atom
• God is Infinite yet Personal
• Matthew 10:29-31 Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will.30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.31 Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
• Balance in God’s Character
• Omnipotent, Omniscient
• Eternal, Self Existent
• Sovereign, Unchanging
• Holiness
• Righteousness
• Justice
• Agape Love
• Grace
• Merciful and Patient
• Compassion
• Kindness and Goodness
• Faithfulness
• Jesus’ Deity Revealed
• Luke 2:46-49
– 46 Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.47 And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding ….
– 49 And He said to them, "Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?"50 But they did not understand the statement which He spoke to them.
• Proper Balance of His Life
• Luke 2:51-52
– 51 Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart.
– 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
• Grace and Truth
• John 1:14-17 And the Word became 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…
• 17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
• Strength and Gentleness
• John 2:14-15 When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables.
• Matthew 19:13-14 Then little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them.14 But Jesus said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven."
• Proposition
• If balance is so essential to our lives, if God’s creation, His character, and the life of Jesus are so well balanced….

• It follows that God’s plan for our spiritual lives is also to be well balanced according to His revealed will …
• Biblical Balance in Salvation
• John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
• Ephesians 2:8-10 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
• Balance in Christian Living
• Matthew 22:36-39
– 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?"37 Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.'38 This is the first and great commandment.
– 39 And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
• Balance in Christian Living
• James 2:14-24 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food,16 and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
• 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
• Getting Things off Balance
• Romans 10:1-3 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
• Getting Things off Balance
• Matthew 13:3-6 "Behold, a sower went out to sow.4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them.5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth.6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.
• Getting Things off Balance
• Ephesians 4:13-16 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,
• Getting Things off Balance
• 1 Corinthians 8:1-2 Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.2 And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.
• Getting Things off Balance
• 1 Corinthians 8:11-12 And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?12 But when you thus sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.
• Getting Things off Balance
• 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
• The Danger of Extremes
• Mark 7:1-7 Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to Him, having come from Jerusalem.2 Now when they saw some of His disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault.3 For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders.4 When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches.
• The Danger of Extremes
• Mark 7:5-7 Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, "Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?" 6 He answered and said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: 'This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. 7 And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
• The Danger of Extremes
• Matthew 5:19-20 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
• The Danger of Extremes
• Matthew 23:4 For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
• Matthew 23:23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.
• The Danger of Extremes
• John 17:12-16 Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled….14 I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.15 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
• The Danger of Extremes
• 2 Timothy 4:2-4 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers;4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
• The Danger of Extremes
• 2 Peter 2:18-20 For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error.19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.20 For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.
• Me and My Circle
• Me and My Circle
• Me and My Circle
• Me and My Circle
• Me and My Circle
• Me and My Circle
• Me and My Circle
• Me and My Circle
• Proposition
• If balance is so essential to our lives, if God’s creation, His character, and the life of Jesus are so well balanced….

• It follows that God’s plan for our spiritual lives is also to be well balanced according to His revealed will …
• Speak the Truth in Love
• Ephesians 4:15-16 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head -- Christ --16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
• Grow in Grace and Knowledge
• 2 Peter 3:17-18 You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked;18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever.
• Finding the Right Spiritual
• The Danger of Spiritual Extremes