The M Word: My Body

This podcast is brought to you by Grant Parkway Baptist.

Helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grand Parkway, visit grandparkway.org.

God, thank you for your faithfulness.

Every morning.

New mercy every morning because you are faithful.

Your steadfast love is our anchor, Lord.

Help us to get that down to the deepest parts of who we are saying you are faithful.

Get that Hebrew 6, anchor within us, Lord God.

Even when we're faithless, Lord, you are faithful.

Lord, now would you please open up our hearts so we can hear from you this morning?

God, help us to hear what you have to say for us this morning and run our race well, keeping our eyes to the prize.

You are faithful.

May your faithfulness be the theme of our lives.

It's in your beautiful name I pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

You may be seated.

Good morning, Hara.

We good?

Awesome.

If you have your Bibles, would you grab those?

Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 9.

1 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

1 Corinthians chapter 9.

1 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, you can obviously access the scriptures on your device.

Or you can just relax as the scriptures are going to appear on your screen.

But if you do have a Bible, I would love for you to turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 9.

1 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

As you're turning there, my name is Leo Almeida.

I'm one of the pastors here on Staff at Grand Parkway.

What that means is I want to build up, I want to help build up the body, this body of believers by teaching in various environments.

Today it's gonna be from behind the pulpit.

But this Wednesday, we're starting a class, our midweek classes, and I'll be teaching a class on neighboring.

Okay, Jesus, one of the most famous that Jesus sayings is love your neighbor as yourself.

And tragically, that's been turned into a cliche, a coffee cup cliche.

And we're gonna spend a few weeks or nine weeks to be exact, just kind of exploring what would it mean if we actually treated that as a command?

What would that look like to be the salt and the light wherever we live?

I'll be teaching that class here in our midweeks.

But yes, I'm a teaching pastor and I'm I'm just teaching, I want to build up the body by teaching in various environments here at this church to the glory of God.

So we're teaching, we're doing a series here called the M-Word.

Okay, so last week was my relationships, and in the ensuing weeks it'll be my money, my mission, and my mouth.

And today we're gonna look at my body.

Okay, my body.

Now I've tagged our time together, sportsmanlike conduct.

If you dropped here from Mars to study humans, like if you're a Martian anthropologist and you're here to study mankind, pretty quickly you would come to the conclusion these creatures love sports.

These creatures love their games.

On average, about 16 to 18 million Americans go home and watch Sunday night football on Sundays.

On average, every four years, about 3.2 billion people, about half our planet, almost half our planet, tunes in to watch the Summer Olympics.

This past year, the Thanksgiving game, the football game, had about 38 million viewers all over the world.

In 2019, only 18% of adolescents.

It was reported that almost 18, only 18% of adolescents didn't play sports.

So ages six to 17, only 18% didn't play sports the entire year.

We're a country who loves sports, raised on sports, enamored by sports, inspired by sports.

And when talking about our rights and desires, Paul uses an athletic metaphor, and hopefully it's extremely helpful and timely for us this morning.

Let's just dive right in.

Look at verse 19.

We're gonna be going from verse 19 all the way to 27.

Follow along with me.

It says this.

I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

Do you not know that in a race all runners run, but only one receives the prize?

So run that you may obtain it.

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things, they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we get an imperishable wreath.

So I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and I keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

It's the word of the Lord.

Now, a sermon about the body is gonna be relevant to everybody because we all have bodies, but however, Paul's argument actually starts further back than that.

And I don't know if you caught it.

Paul sets the table for his commentary about the body by talking about his gospel-shaped life.

And that is right up our alley.

We individually want to be people who live in a manner that's worthy of the gospel.

This church wants to continually orbit around the truths of the gospel.

So, Paul, before he makes his commentary about the body, he sets the table by talking about his gospel-shaped life.

And his words and his actions invite us and instruct us to number one, win by giving up.

Win by giving up.

Now I want to warn you, okay, as we zoom into this passage, okay, this gets pretty un-American pretty quickly.

I know some of us are in here and you're flinching at what I'm gonna say about the body already.

Start flinching now, okay?

Because we are the home of the brave, land of the.

Let's look at how Paul leverages his freedom.

Look at verse 19.

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.

So the gospel gives Paul freedom.

And whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

The gospel gives us freedom, it gives Paul freedom.

But but Paul does not want to spend his freedom on his lusts and his passions and his convenience.

Paul wants to leverage and use his freedom to win people for Christ.

And he names three groups of people right here, and the first one is the religious.

Paul wants to win the religious.

Friends, what's your heart posture towards people who are overly religious?

What's your heart posture right now towards people who are holier than thou?

I don't know if you know this, but right now there are people who believe that they have earned heaven because they can spell Nebuchadnezzar.

Your teaching pastor can barely spell Nebuchadnezzar.

There are people who feel like they've earned heaven because their life verse is something from the minor prophets.

There are people who believe that Leo and Anil and Brent are complete heretics and just dumb because we don't preach out of the King James version of the Bible.

What's your heart posture towards those people?

Look at verse 20.

To the Jews, I became as a Jew in order to win the Jews.

To those under the law, I became as one under the law, though not myself being under the law, that I might win those under the law.

Friends, this right here is on-brand behavior for anybody who understands the missionary heart of God.

When it comes to religious, God wants their hearts too.

God wants them to submit to Jesus as well.

Those people who are relying in their works to save them, God wants them to rest in Jesus and his completed work as well.

God has a burning heart for the Ned Flanders of the world as well.

Paul was one of them.

Paul was a card-carrying Pharisee.

He was on Jewish varsity for crying out loud.

What that means is he memorized Bible books that you and I skip.

Right now it's Bible in a year time.

Some of us are gonna just gallop all over the first John.

Yeah, I can't do this.

I'm gonna go over the first John.

Right?

Paul had those difficult books committed to memory, and he was relying on those things to save him.

However, he ran to the brick wall of the grace of God.

And in Galatians 1, he talks about how it God was pleased to reveal Jesus to him.

God got pleasure out of saving a religious man.

God got pleasure out of that.

The same Jesus who offered living water to a woman at the well, one chapter before preached the gospel to Nicodemus.

And Paul wanted to join Jesus in that.

Paul wanted to win the religious.

Furthermore, Paul wanted to win, leverage his freedom to win the regular man.

Paul wanted to win the regular man.

Look at verse 21.

To those outside the law, I became as one outside the law.

Not being outside the law of God, but being under the law of Christ, that I might win those outside the law.

I was a youth pastor for a lot of years, not a lot of years, but six or so years, and there's a lot of interesting moments dealing with youth and hanging out with youth.

And one of the most uh interesting moments of my entire life came in Colorado back in 2018 when there was a student, and he wasn't joking, he wasn't trying to be funny, he was actually very angry at me and the rest of the leaders that were there at this camp with them in Colorado.

And he was very serious, he said this listen, Leo, you guys just don't understand me.

I get high and I get drunk in the name of Jesus.

How do you not get this?

I smoke and I get it's all in the name of Jesus, which I said, collaborate.

And he began to tell me that he does those things in order to relate better with his friends.

I do those things because those things make me relate better to the people around me.

So I get high with them, I get drunk with them because in those moments, then I can preach Christ.

And that left me pretty speechless.

Have you ever been in a debate or a passionate conversation and you thought of the perfect comeback three weeks later?

You're in the shower, like three weeks later, you're like, oh, when she said this, I should have said, No, your mama's the crazy one.

It's too late.

So we've had that before.

That's me now.

That was four years ago.

That's me right now.

What I should have said is listen, Jesus sat with sinners.

He didn't sin with sinners.

That's pretty good, right?

Dang it, it's too late.

It's too late.

But yes, Paul wants to win.

He was pursuing not just the religious man, he was pursuing the regular man, but he was doing so, but he was consistently underneath the law of Christ.

Paul was not some swindler, some um some chameleon that was changing his ethics every day to win people.

No, no, no, no.

He was always underneath the law of Christ, but he was willing to do so.

Um but he was willing to do so because he wanted to win the regular man.

So Paul wanted to leverage his freedom to win the religious man, to win the regular man.

And lastly, he wanted to leverage his freedom to win the weak man.

Okay, play close at close attention because this cascades us pretty well into the conversation about the body.

Paul wanted to win the weak man.

Look at verse 22.

To the weak, I became weak, that I might win the weak.

Begs the question.

Who are the weak?

Okay, who are the weak?

Friends, throughout your entire New Testament, there's this quiet rivalry happening.

Think like Alabama, Auburn, UT AM, and Duke, North Carolina, there's a quiet rivalry happening all throughout the New Testament, and it is the regular man and the religious man.

What happens when God saves them both and they agree on Christ and they disagree on everything else?

How do you do church then?

That's one of the conundrums of the New Testament, right?

And the regular man, okay, the he's called the Gentile.

The Gentiles, okay, they used to worship false gods, and they didn't do so by going to the pagan temple and singing, Great is your faithfulness.

They did not do that.

They would go to the pagan temple and they would sacrifice food on the altar to their false gods, okay?

Namely, they would sacrifice meat.

And God in his grace saved them out of that.

Well, what happens to the meat?

Well, the meat would leave the temple and it would be transferred over to the Corinthian Kroger and the Corinthian H E B.

And the big question is Is it sinful to eat it?

Is it okay to eat meat?

Is it okay to eat that meat?

And Paul answered this question in chapter eight by saying, Listen, okay, there's no demon juice on your steak, okay?

It's okay to eat the you're not your your your steak is not possessed.

But then he pivots in chapter eight, verse 12, and he says this.

Okay, okay.

Does sinning against your brother's wound in their consciousness is weak if you sin, you sin against Christ.

So he says this if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall in sin, I will never eat meat again.

If what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall in a sin, I will never what he's saying is this if me eating this steak, if meat, this steak was you used to be sacrificed to idols, if me eating this steak, which is fine, God created the cow, he's he's fine.

If me eating this is gonna make that guy relapse back into pagan worship, I'll go vegetarian.

I don't want it.

1 Corinthians 9 12 says this.

Um Paul is talking about getting paid to preach, and he says, We have not made use of this right, but we endure, we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.

Christian, have you ever thought about this?

Have you ever thought, what rights can I lay down for the advancement of the gospel?

I have my rights, I have my freedoms.

Which one of them can I lay down for the advancement of the gospel?

Said differently, do you run your rights through the filter of the gospel?

Do you run your rights through the filter of the gospel?

Was this was this your mindset when you first thought about masks?

Were all your mask decisions preference and convenience driven, or were they gospel driven?

Is this your mindset when it comes to winning arguments?

How many of us have been in a heated debate and you have that one zinger?

You know that one thing, and even and it's true, but you say, you know what, I could say this, it's true, but this might be a speed bump for the gospel later, so I won't.

Friends, this is not passivity.

This is not pacifism.

I'm not condoning pacifism, but I'm saying this right here, what Paul is doing, this is the essence of humility.

I have the power to do this, I have the rights to do this, but out of the love for you, I won't.

Amen.

Let's go.

Or the other way around, you know, I I I don't have I have the right to I have the right to refrain from this, I have the the right to withhold from this, but out of out of love for you, I'm diving right in.

Look at verse 23 for me.

Paul's saying, listen, I do it all for the sake of the gospel that I may share with them in its blessings.

How many of us can get that tattooed on us and not get struck by lightning?

How many of us are living like this?

But Paul is teaching us to win by giving up.

Furthermore, in talking about his gospel-shaped life, he gets to the body.

Now he cascades into the conversation about the body, and his words and his actions invite us to run to win.

When it comes to our body, Paul instructs us to run to win.

Now, um, I have some pictures up here, okay?

To the left.

That's me.

And um, just kidding.

And I'm showing my age here, but I I I was preaching to a group of uh students uh a couple years ago, and I'm being a good pastor, being cultural, right?

Culturally aware, and I'm preaching, I'm giving Michael Jordan as an example, and kids are getting more and more confused, and someone goes, That's a football player, right?

And I was like, oh.

Um, but yes, right here to the left, that's Michael Jordan, and years later to the right, that's Kobe Bryant.

Okay, for the next picture, same thing.

To the right, that's Michael Jordan, and to the left, that is Kobe Bryant.

That's Michael Jordan right there, and that is Kobe Bryant.

I think we have one more, one more.

That is Michael Jordan, and that is Kobe Bryant.

What do you see?

What's what do you notice about all these pictures?

Yeah, they're almost identical.

As a matter of fact, if you go on the internet, if you care, I care about these things.

There are dozens of these.

In fact, if you go to YouTube and put Jordan, Kobe identical plays, there are long YouTube videos.

Me and like five other nerds all over the world watch these videos, but there are millions of views.

And what it is, it's Michael Jordan doing a move and scoring, and then it cuts away to 20 years later to Kobe doing the exact same move and scoring, and it is eerie how close it is.

I mean, the footwork, the facial expressions.

I mean, there's one time where Kobe was crying, and I was like, he cries like Jordan.

Remarkably identical.

Well, what the story behind this is that Kobe Bryant got drafted to the NBA like a couple weeks after high school.

He was 17 when he got drafted to play on the Lakers.

And at the time, the NBA was a grown man's league.

What that means is everybody on the team was in their late 20s, early 30s with families and kids.

And then here comes a 17 year old.

Couldn't relate very well.

So literally, the team would go out to bars and Kobe couldn't legally be there, so he'd have to be at home in the hotel.

Or they'd go out to certain restaurants and Kobe couldn't legally be there, so he'd have to be at the hotel.

And what he would do in this hotel is he would just study Jordan.

I mean, to a T from the footwork to the tongue out, he would study Michael Jordan.

And this actually is a pretty generic formula of athletic prosperity.

Right?

Like if you want to be good, find someone who's done what you want to do and just copy them.

Why am I telling you this?

Paul is about to talk about how he treats his body.

And the temptation for us is to back up and go, Leo, he's an apostle.

That's a Bible author for crying out loud.

That's Paul.

And I just want to invite us back in by saying he punctuates this entire section by saying, imitate me as I imitate Christ.

Copy me as I copy Christ.

I want to get us right back in, lest we say, ah, you know, that's that's varsity, Leo.

That's the big leagues.

I want to invite us back to know he's inviting us to copy his life.

To copy his life.

We're called to copy Paul's treatment of his body by A, having athletic awareness.

Athletic awareness.

Look at verse 24.

Do you not know that in a race all runners run, but only one receives the prize?

So run that you may obtain it.

Friends, when it comes to the body, when it comes to our appetites, when it comes to our sensual desires, Paul's saying us, listen, you are in a race.

Okay, we are in a race.

Now, nobody was ever saved to go sit in the stands.

Okay, you are in a race.

Granted, it's a grace race.

You're not running to earn God's love for you.

You're not running to earn the cross.

You're not running to earn God's grace.

Grace is free.

It's a grace race, but nevertheless, it is a race.

And Paul is not calling us to chronic comparison, calling us to compete with other Christians with how we look or how we eat or how we work out.

He's not calling us to that, but he's calling us to approach our bodies, our appetites, and our sensual desires with the focus of an Olympian.

Think about how Olympians prepare, boy.

Listen to them in interview.

They talk about how their body is an expensive car.

No junk gets in here.

And Paul is calling us to approach our bodies, our appetites, our sensual desires with a competition-like zeal, with the intention, with the attention of an Olympian in order for us to honor God.

So this is this sport metaphor when it hit home for these Corinthian listeners because they used to host, and a couple towns away, they used to host something called the Isthmian Games.

The Isthmian Games, they obviously are no longer, but they ran kind of parallel to the Olympics.

They were every two to three years, and they're like the JV version of the Olympics.

They were very popular around Greece.

They had boxing, they had wrestling, they had this mixed martial arts sports where two people would fight and uh basically they'd fight until one of them dies or time runs out.

And they had chariot racing, they had musical competitions, and they also had foot racing.

And when he says here in this passage, do you not know that in a race, all runners run?

That word race gays the word stage.

It's a measurement of distance.

It's 600 feet.

So when Paul says this, he's referencing the 200-meter dash.

And back then in the Isthmian games, they didn't have bronze, they didn't have silver.

One person won.

There's no second place, there's no third place.

Only one person won.

Think about their intentionality with their bodies in preparation.

Think about their focus when they're within the race.

Think about their intensity when they're in the competition.

Paul's saying, run like that.

Run like that guy.

Run like that gal.

Paul's point is that, like a runner, the Christian must give his very best until the very end.

Friends, whenever we're, when it comes to our body, we're called to athletic awareness.

We are in a race.

Okay, this is important for us to know.

The enemy wants believers to be enslaved and unaware that we are not slave, that we're not saved to sit in the stands.

We are in a race.

Satan wants us relaxed and unaware.

That's how I used to beat my brother in basketball.

He's so much taller, so much bigger, so much stronger.

Then whenever we him and I would play basketball in a driveway, I would have to stop and go, Well, I didn't know he was coming over.

My brother would look and I'm gone, boy.

Best way to beat somebody is when they don't even know that they're competing.

We're called to an athletic awareness.

Furthermore, we're called to copycat Paul's treatment of his body by having self-control.

Self-control.

Look at verse 25.

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.

They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we have an imperishable.

Now Corinth was an extremely sensual place.

As a place that people were driven by their bodily cravings, and this was encouraged.

And their billboards and their signs, it was encouraged.

They had slogans, and the slogans were all things are lawful for me.

Translation, I have the right to do anything.

Then another slogan that was food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach is meant for food.

Translation, live by your appetites.

Listen to your body and give it all that at once.

It was a culture where their moral compass was their craving.

Does that remind you of any place you know?

Let's think about our slogans.

What's the slogan for Sprite right now?

Obey your thirst.

What's the slogan for Vegas?

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

What's the slogan for Jose Cuervo?

I wouldn't know I had to look this up.

Tomorrow is overrated.

What's the slogan for Hagenda's?

Pleasure is the path to joy.

How much more, how much different are we?

Now listen, God invented pleasure.

Okay, God is not anti-pleasure.

At his right hand are pleasures forevermore.

He's not anti-pleasure, he's not anti-fun, but in this grace race, every athlete is to exercise self-control in all things.

Friends, we're currently living in a land where gluttony is completely shrugged at.

Lest you think I'm preaching from total victory here because I'm skinny, this is not a weight thing.

A lot of that is genetics.

Some of it might be gluttony, but it's not a weight thing.

Gluttony is not a weight issue primarily, but it's a way of thinking issue.

It's people using food as their savior.

Or in the words of Frederick Buchner, a glutton is one who raids the icebox, or a glutton is one who raids the fridge in search of a cure for their spiritual malnourishment.

And America is consistently top 10 on the planet, consistently top 10 on the planet.

And when it comes to obesity, we have all these pelotons, all these gyms, things that the world doesn't have access to, but rather we have 40, almost 40% of adults struggle with obesity.

And friends, this is a serious thing.

Like almost like clockwork.

Almost every time gluttony gets brought up in Christian circles, like clockwork, somebody makes a joke.

Somebody makes a joke and it just relaxes everybody else.

And what we're actually doing is we're storming the gates of I ain't Paul, I ain't Jesus, I'm not an apostle.

This is serious.

What sin comes to mind when you think of Sodom and Gomorrah?

Exactly.

Okay.

Ezekiel 16 tells us that there was a little bit more to the story.

Gluttony played a role.

Christian, are you are you affected by the kingship of Jesus when it comes to food?

Or do you look identical to the world in this area?

Food is meant to be enjoyed.

It is a beautiful thing, such a gift of God, especially when you read the creation narrative how food was made before mankind even came, right?

Such a beautiful gift of God, such a communal thing.

But are you letting it control you?

Are you looking for a savior when you go to the fridge?

We live in a land where gluttony is completely shrugged at.

Furthermore, we live in a place where sexual perversion is completely normalized.

Where the adult film industry makes 16.9 billion dollars.

And just put that in perspective, that's more than the NBA.

More than the MLB, more in the NHL, more in the NFL.

Where adult film companies, their magic number right now is eight.

They're targeting eight-year-olds.

And a lot of it is working.

How is your self-control when it comes to sexual immorality?

Not just indeed, but also in thought.

Are you holding every thought captive?

Where gluttony is shrugged at, sexual perversion is normalized.

And friends, there are so many more I could name.

Which appetite has a control on you right now?

Put it differently.

What are you hoping I don't say?

Right?

Look at verse 27.

But I discipline my body and I keep it under control, lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified.

Paul is saying, listen, I don't want my lack of self-control to disqualify me from this race.

We've all heard of athletes who've been disqualified from future rewards, whether if it's the Hall of Fame or whatever, had to forfeit their championship or whatever, whether it's the Lance Armstrong, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, we all know of athletes who've been disqualified.

Paul's saying, I don't want to be disqualified from this race.

I don't want my lack of self-control to disqualify me from being heard.

Because here I am preaching about this focused savior, this savior that had tunnel vision towards the cross.

Read the book of John.

My hour has not yet come.

My hour has not yet come.

My hour, he's focused on that hour.

My hour is finally here.

Tunnel vision, just laser-like vision towards the hour he'd saved the world.

And that muscle in our mouths that creates and excretes saliva, Jesus thought of that.

Yeah, people were using that to spit in his face and cuss at him.

Think of what he had the right to do right there.

But yeah, he's like, no, no, I got a world to save.

I'm going to the cross.

Like a lamb to the slaughter, boy.

And Paul is saying, listen, I don't want to preach about this self-control focused savior and have somebody go, Sakam, you don't have any self-control.

I don't want my lack of self-control to be a speed bump when I talk about the gospel.

And Paul is saying, I don't want my lack of self-control to disqualify me from the blessings of the gospel or to disqualify me from the rewards of faithfulness.

So I pummel my body.

It's a grace race.

I was gripped by Christ, but I pommel my body and I make it my slave.

This is not self-hatred.

Paul's not struggling from body dysmorphia, but this is sin hatred.

What Paul is saying here is my spirit within me, it controls my flesh, not the other way around.

I keep my body under.

Okay, I my sensual desires do not rule me.

I master my body.

Okay, any impulses that weaken my zeal for God, I deny those.

And how many of us can say that that's us?

How many of us can read that and go, yes, that's me?

Me neither.

If that's not you, it says it doesn't sound like if it doesn't sound like you, I don't have that much good advice.

What I have is some really, really good news.

That the gospel has power to free you.

Because some of us are doers, you're willpower people.

So right now, you're changing your lunch plans based on what I just said.

You're a doer.

I'm I'm let's go.

But I just want to say the gospel's the gospel is the power of God.

And it has more power than your willpower.

Your willpower does not compare to the power of the gospel.

And friends, the gospel not only takes us from death to life, but it completely reorients us to view our body better.

The gospel transforms how we view our body.

It takes us from new year, new me to old creation, new creation.

If you are in Christ, you are a new creation.

And what that means is Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10 says that God is writing a poem with your life.

Ephesians 2:10

You're not saved by good works, but you're saved for good works.

And you want to be fit for those good works.

God has laid out things, your fitness is aiming at those good works that accomplish that God has laid out for you.

So the gospel transforms our minds from the American new year, new me to old creation, new creation.

I got a mission.

Okay, to the one who hates their body.

This was me for years.

Junior high and in high school, elementary, junior high, and high school, this was me.

You have no clue how many coaches said, Man, you're a good player, but if you were just a little bit taller, a little bit stronger, a little bit bigger, and it would drive me up a wall because I was already so handsome.

I was like, gosh, you gotta be kidding me.

Does that count for anything?

But to the one who is overly upset, or to the one who hates their body, the gospel ensures to those who hate their body that you were bought with a price.

You were bought with a price.

That is huge for you to understand.

Okay?

Like Hosea, Hosea married Gomer, and then Gomer uh cheated on him, left him, and then sells her body in the marketplace, and then uh Hosea goes and pursues her and he pays to get his wife back.

He pays for what's already his.

In that same way, you were made in the image of God.

You were made to image God.

You were made, but God also bought you back.

In one sense, he always owned you.

In another sense, through the cross of Jesus Christ, he bought you back.

You were bought with a price.

Understand how valuable you are in the eyes of God.

To the one who's overly obsessed with their bodies, the gospel frees you from being obsessed with your body.

So you can enjoy your physical features, you can enjoy your smile, your or your abs or your biceps, or your tattoo, or your hair.

You can enjoy those things in freedom, understanding that your good looks was never meant to be marketing for how awesome you were.

But this is for the glory of God.

We are switchblades of movement.

Are you kidding me?

The same species that has ballerinas has linebackers.

Look at that.

This is incredible.

And that that should lead us to worship.

Looking at all the bodies in here, that should make us worship.

It's all about the glory of God.

And the gospel gives us ears to hear that our body is ultimately for the Lord.

Our body is for the Lord.

You're a temple of the Holy Spirit.

You're a means by which the world sees God's mercy.

Your body is for the Lord.

And perhaps the bazooka passage for this is Romans chapter 12, verse one, when it says this.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

That by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

That's huge.

Okay, by the mercies of God, not by your white-knuckled effort, okay, by your by your willpower.

No, no, no.

How did your infant child buy you a present?

It was by your own money given, by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable.

And the way you treat your body, that's your spiritual worship.

And what that means is long after Clyde exits the stage, or long after Lindsay exits the stage, long after the doors close here on a Sunday, you get to keep going.

You get to use your body as an instrument of worship.

And Paul is inviting us to do so with self-control.

By the way you control your body and keep it underneath.

Use that as your worship of God, that's your spiritual worship.

And why do we do those things?

Okay, the prize.

Okay, that's our last one.

We aim for the prize.

Recall to copy Paul's treatment of his body by aiming for the prize.

Now, Sprite for a long time.

I obeyed my thirst for a long time, right?

I have Sprite is kind of my thing.

Okay.

My last church knew this, so most of the families at our church had Sprite in their fridge, probably because of me.

Okay, they knew Leo's coming over.

We have Sprite here for him.

I love Sprite.

But in fifth grade, uh, I think it was actually seventh grade, early in my basketball tenure, uh, I got a rude awakening.

My brother told me, hey, you know, you know, Sprite is a carbonated beverage.

You know that's gonna mess with their conditioning, right?

You know that's gonna mess with the way you actually play basketball, right?

And friends, that was an existential crisis for a young man.

Okay, how can I let go of this delicious thing for a few months?

But all I had to do was think of winning district.

All I had to do back then, winning the district championship at Beck Junior High was the meaning of life, right?

All I had to do was think of how awesome it was gonna feel to put district champions on my MySpace.

I remember that.

Or on my AOL Instant Messenger.

What would happen is that future glory of getting the shirt that says district champs would supersede my desire for this deliciousness right now.

And that's the essence of discipline, right?

Giving up what's good and great for what's the best later.

Your restraint, Paul says, is sponsored by your reward.

Your restraint is sponsored by your reward.

In closing, just look at verses 25 and 26.

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.

They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we are an imperishable.

So I do not run aimlessly.

I do not box as one beating the air.

Who won the 400-meter dash in the 1988 Olympics?

I don't know either.

Exactly.

Those things fade.

Okay, those medals are gonna end up in someone's garage sale someday.

Imperishable reward.

And what's our reward?

Our reward is the sole fulfilling accolade of being personally honored by Jesus in heaven.

The sole fulfilling accolade of being honored by Jesus in heaven.

Okay?

John Bloom puts it this way gaining Christ through the gospel, gaining all of God and all his promises and his cross-reconciled children for all eternity, losing all sin, all death, all hell, all their accompanying miseries was the reward that gave Paul his laser-light focus and fueled his self and discipline.

The reward is that soul-fulfilling accolade of being honored by Jesus in heaven.

All the runners are equal.

But the Lord will reward each one at judgment.

At the judgment seat of Christ, in proportion to their work.

Some people are gonna hear, well done, my good and faithful servant.

Others are gonna hear the Hebrews 11 admonition the world was not worthy of you.

Your faith was such a world was not worthy of you at all.

What would your week look like if you were playing for that day?

Being personally reward being the soul-fulfilling accolade of being honored by Jesus in heaven.

What would your week look like if you were playing for that day?

May we be a people who are not so short-sided.

Arm yourself with this mindset as you're fighting your sin.

As you're fighting any impulse that weakens your zeal for God and say, Listen, I I'm giving up what's good and great for what's best later.

And let's aim for that reward.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Holy Spirit, thank you for who you are.

Thank you for your word that's so timeless and it's also so timely.

Um God, thank you for um the cross.

You've outed all of us as being gluttonous and being um immoral and being greedy and being angry.

God, you've outed all of us with the cross.

We love you, Jesus.

Thank you so much for the cross.

It's in your beautiful name I pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Um, we'd like to end um our teaching by giving you some space to process what you just heard.

Um, so we're gonna put some questions up.

These questions are already up.

You can take a picture of them, or you can just uh mentally worship by responding to what you just heard by answering these questions in your mind.

Okay, I'm gonna give you some space to be alone and respond to our Lord um in prayer.

Dear God, thank you for who you are.

Um thank you for your grace.

Lord, we love you, we praise you.

It's in your beautiful name I pray.

Amen.

As always, church, thank you so much for for being here.

Um, we want to let you know what's happening, we want to give you a chance to see what's happening in the life of our church.

So would you please just turn your attention to the video screens behind us?

We have some video announcements to show you.

Thank you for joining us today.

Here's some things we want you to know.

Men's Breakfast is happening this Tuesday at 6 a.m.

in the warehouse.

You'll hear from one of our men about how God has worked in his life and hear teaching from God's Word.

Community groups begin next Sunday on January 16th.

We will meet in homes around our city to share authentic dialogue among friends and discuss that day's sermon.

To find the right group for you, head to grandparkway.org.

Here's a look at an important opportunity to serve in our kids' ministry.

Hi, my name is Lynette Wichuku, and I started going to Grand Parkway Baptist Church five years ago.

Hello, um, my name is Hannah.

I am a Nigerian, I'm a mom, I'm a student.

I've actually been in school since 2017 when I joined this church.

My name is Al Williams, and uh when I was growing up, there was uh there were men in my life that poured back into me, and I have memories of those guys when I was in my church.

I had these men were were taught me, they dedicated their time to the to us, and I I've always felt like that this was a calling that I had to give back.

And when I first started going to the church, I was with my two-year-old daughter, and she would come to me with in the sermons, and as you can imagine, that was quite difficult.

But we had a hard time getting her to go to Sunday school.

But one day we went back into the children's building, and my daughter met Miss Krista, and she immediately fell in love with Miss Krista.

So that was good.

So she started going to Sunday school, and I was able to go to the sermon on my own without taking care of her.

But I wasn't just comfortable coming into church and you know, sitting down and warming up the seats, you know.

So I decided to join the volunteer.

And I told Miss Krista, I said, you know, I can clean toilets, I can do whatever you want to do.

But in her infinite wisdom, she put me in the classroom.

And you know, I was a little nervous because I'm not a teacher and I thought that wasn't gonna be a good fit for me.

But she said, you know, you can just be a helper and learn, and I did, and I started enjoying it, and I was volunteering about once a month, as I was committed to do as being a mother of one of the children in the children's building.

So I spoke with Jaina and I was like, I don't know if I can do this because my accent, that was my number one issue.

You know, how would they understand me?

Like, how am I gonna speak in class?

But right now I feel uh comfortable, I feel confident.

Every one of us that have come to know the Lord, somebody has poured into us.

And uh and I just think it's so special to be able to give back.

We never retire from ministry, and uh, so giving back to these young ones is just such a blessing.

You know, one way to be blessed is to be a blessing to others, and there's something about watching these youngsters, watching them respond uh when you speak to them and teach them and see them when they're starting to learn the word of God and how excited they get.

Uh, there's there's nothing better.

I know at one point I I told one of the mothers that was volunteering with me for the day that I said we were just glorified babysitters, and she's like, No, my son tells me all the time about how much he's learning in Bible school.

So it's it's been a really good ple a big pleasure to work with the children, and I think I'm learning a lot.

I think God has called me into this position and it is given me the benefits of being with your children in my life.

I want to encourage you uh on January the 9th of coming up.

If you have any interest or if you feel a tug in your heart to serve in the kids' ministry in any capacity, please come to the meeting.

It'll be after church on Sunday, January the 9th.

So if you would like to be blessed like I have been blessed and have interest in working in the children's building, please come to the next kids' ministry interest meeting.

If you're new or would like someone to pray with you, find one of our pastors at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.

As always, church, it's so awesome to have you um here.

If you are visiting uh here with us, um thank you for for coming.

You matter to God, therefore you you matter to us.

And would you do us a favor and just fill out that connect card?

Um, and um you can put those in that box, the boxes around the room, and that just gives us a record of your of your visit.

Um and if you belong to Grant Parkway uh church, if you if you this is your your church home and this is the day you worship through tithes and offerings, um those boxes are there um for that as well.

Um after we're done here, we're gonna give you some pastors in the front to help you process or uh anything you've heard or to help pray for you um in that.

So again, thank you so much for being here.

We're gonna conclude with a spoken blessing.

Would you guys stand to your feet now?

Hold your hands out for me.

When no eye has seen when no ear has heard When no heart of man has imagined things that are waiting for those who love God go out and be people who are aiming by the power of the Holy Spirit, who are aiming for that personal accolade with Jesus.

We pray this thing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Amen.