Worship Folder | Full Service Video

Outline

Introduction: Habits eat willpower for breakfast.

"The crucible of our formation is the monotony of our daily routines."  Tish Harrison Warren

"Habits eat willpower for breakfast." - John Ortberg

I.  THE BIG PICTURE
You don't have a body. You are a body.

II.  PRESENTING YOUR BODY
The body goes first.  

III.  GRACE REIGNING
Breaking free from the ingrained (sinful) habits of the body. 

“The needed change within us is God’s work, not ours. The demand is for an inside job, and only God can work from the inside… (Then he quotes Gal 6:6-7 and offers an analogy.)… A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain. This is the way with the Spiritual Disciplines – they are a way of sowing to the Spirit. They are God’s way of getting us into the ground; they put us where he can work within us and transform us. By themselves they can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done.” – Richard Foster

Resources

• Drew Dyck, Your Future Self Will Thank You
• Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline
• Stanley Hauerwas, “Habit Matters: The Bodily Character of Virtue”
• Tish Harrison Warren, The Liturgy of the Ordinary

Discussion Questions

1. "The crucible of our formation is the monotony of our daily routines." Discuss this quote from Tish Harrison Warren.  
2. What is one new spiritual habit that you could work on this summer? 
3. What are the main obstacles to making progress in this new spiritual habit?
4. Are you prone to hyper-spiritualizing? What role does your body have in the development of the new spiritual habit? 
5. Discuss the imagery of reaping and sowing. How are spiritual disciplines different than willpower?