Lift Week Four: The Lift of Cultivated Life | 1 Timothy 4:1-16

The following is a manuscript of the sermon presented by Senior Pastor Dr. Roger Patterson on Sunday, July 23, 2023 at our West U Baptist campus. To view the sermon in full, check out the link below.

Good morning, 1 Tim. 4 today – meet me there. APP notes are available if that helps you in your discipleship/growth. Pray with me.

Lexlee Hudson, Linda Migliaccio, Ann Wulff, Jonathan Clinthorne, Marsha Parker. All of these people share something in common. They all have incredible and inspiring weight loss transformation stories. If you were to listen to their stories each person talks about intentional decisions that were made in their journey.

Each of these stories includes 2 decisions – an intentional no and an intentional yes. No to certain foods, and yes to other foods. Yes, to a regular exercise/fitness regimen, and no to the status quo of not moving their bodies much at all. As they made these 2 decisions in diet and exercise, their lives began to transform. They shifted from an unintentional life to a cultivated life. And the result and their stories are incredible and inspiring.

One of the things that we desperately need in our lives, in our homes, in our public offices, in our churches are those who lives practice what they preach, whose lives have been cultivated by their message, so that they practice what they preach.

I know that many of you have heard me talk about Brent Gallagher’s influence in my life on my journey to weight loss. He and his wife Cassie own Avenu Fitness and Lifestyle on Edloe Street, just on the other side of West University Elementary.

I’ll never forget the day I saw Brent on a run. He was moving. He was hustling. He was crushing it.

And I thought, “Now there is a guy that practices what he preaches.”

One of the things that Brent told me as he was coaching me, was when I was done with my workout, send him a selfie. So, now, I send selfies when done.

Just the other day, he published a newsletter where he talked about the “2 mile Run,” where you go as hard as you can.

So, I send him this photo, and then, at lunchtime, he sends me his post-workout selfie.