Vital Signs
Truth For Life Daily Program
Alistair Begg
4.8 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A body detached from its head won’t survive on its own. Similarly, a church will fail if it disconnects from Christ as its head. So how can we tell if a church is spiritually alive? Look for the vital signs! Learn more on Truth For Life with Alistair Begg.
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This listener-funded program features the clear, relevant Bible teaching of Alistair Begg. Today’s program and nearly 3,000 messages can be streamed and shared for free at tfl.org thanks to the generous giving from monthly donors called Truthpartners. Learn more about this Gospel-sharing team or become one today. Thanks for listening to Truth For Life!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you. When a body is detached from its head, obviously, it won't survive on its own. |
| 0:31.1 | In the same way, a church will fail if it is disconnected from Christ as its head. |
| 0:37.2 | So how can we tell if a church is spiritually alive? |
| 0:41.0 | We'll learn today how to look for the vital signs. On Truth for Life, Alistair Begg is teaching |
| 0:46.3 | from 1st Peter chapter 4. Medical people talk about our vital signs. I don't honestly know what they actually are. I can |
| 1:00.4 | hazard a guess at them. I think you're supposed to be breathing. That's helpful. And that there should |
| 1:05.5 | be a pulse somewhere there is an indication of something. That your eyes have some movement in them as a help as well, |
| 1:13.9 | I believe, but certainly I don't know what the vital signs are in terms of the specifics. |
| 1:19.8 | However, there are vital signs to show that a body is alive, and so in the same way, |
| 1:25.7 | there are vital signs to show that the body of Christ is alive, and so in the same way there are vital signs to show that the body of Christ is alive. |
| 1:30.5 | And these vital signs are practical evidences of the fact that Jesus Christ is the head of that |
| 1:36.8 | body. And they are these, as he outlines them for us. First of all, prayer, then love, then hospitality, then service or ministry, and then |
| 1:49.3 | praise or worship. So prayer is number one, and we have considered that. And then secondly, |
| 1:56.4 | in verse eight, vital sign number two or practical test number two is the test of genuine Christian love. |
| 2:05.4 | You will notice that he assumes that Christian love is operated amongst those who love Jesus. |
| 2:12.5 | He wants that we would love each other deeply. |
| 2:16.0 | He's concerned about the quality of Christian love. He's concerned |
| 2:19.9 | about its sincerity. He's concerned about its priority in much the same way as we discovered in the |
| 2:26.6 | 22nd verse of chapter 1, where he says, now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth, |
| 2:32.9 | so that you have sincere love for your brothers, |
| 2:36.1 | love one another deeply from the heart. He says, you can't be a Christian without loving one another. |
| 2:42.1 | You've obeyed the truth. Your lives have been purified. You've been cleansed from your sin. |
... |
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