A Healthy Body (1 Corinthians 5:1-12)

We are going to be in 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

So if you could be turning there, we will read through the passage.

Not to put a little trauma already in the water here, but think about this.

Three years ago, this week, pastors were excitedly preparing to deliver their 2020 vision sermons.

Lots happened since then.

My hope today is to look a little bit back and a little bit forward in the midst of this passage and to be able to just uh reflect as well and to look ahead.

So, and you're looking at this passage going, how are you gonna do that?

It'll be a fun ride.

So, if you are able to, please stand with me for the reading of God's word.

1 Corinthians 5, starting in verse 1, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and the kind of sexual immorality that's not even tolerated among the Gentiles.

A man is sleeping with his father's wife.

And you're arrogant.

Shouldn't you be filled with grief and remove from your congregation the one who did this, even though I'm absent in the body and present in spirit?

As one who's present with you in this way, I've already pronounced judgment on the one who has been doing such a thing.

When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I am with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, hand that one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Your boasting is not good.

Don't you know that a little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough?

Clean out the old leaven, so that you may be a new leavened, unleavened batch, as indeed you are.

For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.

Therefore let us observe the feast, not with old leaven or with the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I wrote you in a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, but I didn't mean the immoral people of this world, or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters.

Otherwise you would have to leave the world.

But actually I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister, and is sexually immoral, or greedy, an idolater, or verbally abusive, a drunkard or a swindler.

Don't even eat with such a person.

For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders?

Don't you judge those who are inside?

God judges outsiders.

Remove the evil person from among you.

Well, Lord, I ask that you would be glorified this morning.

I ask that you would fill me with your spirit to speak your truth, and you would fill the listeners with your spirit to rightly divide.

Please say exactly what you want to say today and be glorified.

Amen.

Go ahead and have a seat.

And I know you're thinking like, I woke up on New Year's Day for this.

It's alright.

So this is an interesting passage because he's number one, we have to figure out what is the author communicating.

Because he's writing to a church in the first century AD.

And then we have to figure out what does that have to do with us?

I'm assuming, I know many of you, not a whole lot of edible issues going on here to where this is all of that relevant, the specific sin that's happening in the church here.

But there is a lot of relevance there in the midst and the subtext in that.

So that's the goal today is to go, what is Paul trying to say?

And what does that have to do with us in the meantime?

It's interesting because passages like this are kind of like a rorschach test for us when we teach this, depending on temperament.

Because if you have somebody who's really excited to teach this kind of passage, you're kind of like maybe take the sharp objects away from that man.

Or somebody who's like, oh dear lord, I really don't want to do this.

And it's one of those, like, you know what, it's okay.

We can, we'll, we'll, this is good.

So we need some context.

Because again, Corinthians, this letter here, 1 Corinthians, was a letter.

One long letter.

Who was it to?

The church in Corinth.

To the whole church.

A letter from Paul to a church that he was helped plant in that sense.

And it all flows together.

So the best way I can see to filter this whole passage through is the idea, and I made this up, that the church is like a body.

I did not make that up, but it's in the chapter 12 of this book of 1 Corinthians.

So the idea that the church is like a body, functions together, tied together, different body parts functioning together as one.

Which makes a little bit of sense because that idea of the church being a body and Christ being the head really pulls into what we've been going over the last few chapters, where the church in Corinth is arguing over who is the head, whether it's Paul or Apollos or Cephas or Jesus, all these different things.

And he's saying, Stop, Jesus is the head.

And so we have this idea of a body functioning together, growing together.

When you put food into a body, it actually feeds your whole body.

You don't eat lunch and go, that's for you, arm.

I've earmarked those food funds straight for the arm.

Everybody else, sorry, you're gonna have to grow.

It feeds your whole body, right?

That's how that works.

And so if the church as a spiritual body, Christ as the head, with the Holy Spirit holding it all together.

So how do we grow as a body?

How do we grow healthy as a body?

We don't, I'll tell you how we don't grow healthy as a body.

Indulgence, overcomfort, inactivity.

These are the kind of things that are not conducive to growth and health as a body.

We've, I mean, I know we live in 2023 in the United States, which is like the birthplace of fad diets, but ultimately we've known from forever that you know, healthy diet and exercise makes a healthy person typically in that way.

Healthy friction, stressors, exercise are what makes us grow as a body, are what makes us healthy and add long life and longevity in that sense, not comfort and indulgence.

We don't need to grow through sitting and eating as many donuts as we can.

You will grow that way.

But not healthy, so functions of growth, stress, soreness, friction, rest, repeat, that's how you grow as a body.

And so why do I say this?

Because this is this sounds like a duh, but it's very hard sometimes to function through as a uh as a church and as a body, and because it's easy to look at the Church of Corinth and go, you guys are gross.

You guys are just really just abnormally gross people and a messed up church, not like anybody else.

So here's the thing: it is now 2023.

And what's just trippy?

So once again, 2020 was a full three years ago.

Isn't that crazy?

It is officially okay to start learning lessons from 2020.

Isn't that nice?

So, what did we learn in 2020 as an example?

We we learned a whole lot as a body, as how that works, if if we are willing to do so, which is interesting because depending on your different leadership style, depending on the different bodies represented, the whole experience went very, very, very differently.

So, painting with a broad brush.

You have the CEO charismatic leader, right?

Has all the systems, has the uh exposure, and then 2020 hit, and all that influence kind of went for a moment there, and the systems didn't work because things didn't quite work the way they did, and it freaked out.

How do we build systems?

So we build live stream.

And you have those who are the uh ultra counselors who came from that.

That's like if I can just love people enough and comfort them enough, they will be comfortable enough to health.

And then 2020 happened, and sheep that were overfed and underled found comfort in other things like substances.

And then you have the uh the angry prophet leader who was preparing their flock for a moment like this, but kind of prepared them to attack anything and anybody they saw.

And so you ended up with sheep that bite and attack.

See what I mean with that?

Is that and nobody's perfect, and nothing's perfect.

I think we can all learn something from all of that.

And so the idea is what am I saying with all of this?

A body grows through healthy friction, through stressors, seasons of rest, comfort, love, all of the above mixed together.

We want simple answers, but it has to come through those things.

And so when we want to kind of exclude some of those things, it gets a little bit awkward because here Paul gives a little bit more of the uh stretching than he gives comfort, if that makes sense.

And you guys are like, that is the longest intro I have ever heard.

We're getting into the passage, I promise.

So, what do we see here?

There are two issues at hand.

Normally we see one, but there's two.

It's actually reported in verse one among you.

There's sexual immorality among you, the kind of sexual immorality that's not even tolerated among the Gentiles.

A man is sleeping with his father's wife.

So, issue number one, there is sexual immorality among them, not only so much, not so much so, but so much so that they have a reputation for this.

And their reputation so that the people in Corinth are like, that's gross.

That's a bad sign, by the way, when the pretty much anything goes culture of Corinth is like, oh gosh, who would do that?

So that's issue number one.

This individual.

And we go, oh yeah, that's clearly an issue, that's gross, we have to deal with that.

Well, here's issue number two, though, verse two, and you're arrogant.

Shouldn't you be filled with grief and remove from your congregation the one who did this?

So there is an individual issue of perverse sexual sin of an individual in the church.

And then there is a corporate issue of them not only tolerating that, but being proud of that fact.

Them being like, look out, I mean, we're we're cool, right?

We're good, we're letting this happen, you know, and all those things.

You're arrogant.

Shouldn't you be filled with grief and removed from your congregation the one who did this?

If we take sin seriously and see it as that which, as we see in the book of James, grows up and produces death in the individual, then this would break our hearts.

We wouldn't just get mad and say you're gross, go away.

It's, oh man, you're hurting yourself and everyone around you.

What's you're better than this?

This is killing you.

But rather, they're proud of this.

So these are the two big issues in this passage.

Number one, there is an individual that has a sin issue.

An individual that is claiming to be a follower of Jesus and yet is openly living in sin.

And then you have a body around that person who is tolerating that, even encouraging that, and they're proud of what they've become in that.

So those are the two issues.

Now, like I said, I know most of you, and I am pretty confident that none of you are struggling with this specific sin.

Right?

Okay.

So we sit there and we go, like, what is wrong with them?

Why would they get there?

How do they get there?

Well, this is very easy to get there because they are their own little body, right?

And in that body, we're always right.

Everything we do makes sense.

If enough of us say it and enough of us experience, then it, and we keep telling each other that, then we're like, well, yeah, this is the most reasonable thing in the world.

We all do that.

That's kind of a human condition in that sense.

We think we always think we're right inside of our own bubbles.

And one of the most interesting ways, I think, to present the gospel is this idea of the world being like one of those bubbles, and Jesus coming from the outside to bring truth into that culture and that context.

Like medicine, healing what is sick and cancerous.

Paul is doing the same thing here from the outside, going like, what?

No! Are you kidding me?

And he continues that in verse 3.

Even though I am absent in the body, I am present in spirit, and as one who is present with you in this way, I've already pronounced judgment on the one who has been doing such a thing.

Verse 3 here.

So he's saying, I'm not there, but I'm present in spirit, and I have already, as one who is present with you, pronounced judgment on the one who's been doing such a thing.

Who's Paul talking to here?

He's talking to the church, right?

So this is important.

Why is this important?

Because he is about to give a prescription for the uh issues at hand here.

And he's telling that to the church.

This letter is not, here's the thing.

Here's why I'm telling you this.

Oftentimes when we cycle through this, we call this church discipline and go, this is how we as leaders exercise church discipline within the church.

He's actually talking to the congregants here because it's so uh endemic in the culture there.

And so he's actually telling the people to do something.

We have no idea who the leaders of the church in Corinth are, so much so that some people, I'm not sure if I'm on this wagon or not, speculate that the church is so carnal they haven't even been able to install elders.

We don't know if that's true or not.

But having that said, he's talking to this body who's proud.

And he's saying, look, I'm here with you in spirit, and here's what I have to say.

Verse 4.

When you're assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I'm with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, hand that one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

So, when you're all assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus, this is we this is where you're assembling, right?

This isn't like an ambush in the grocery store, right?

That'd be awkward.

This is them gathered together under the head of Jesus, with Paul in agreement, hand that one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

We'll get back to that in a moment, because like, what?

So something we need to understand here and remember is that Paul is a what?

He's an apostle, right?

Sometimes when we look at this passage and other passages, we're looking at through the eyes of our own context and go, yeah, well, that's the apostle.

That's a church leader, that's these things, that's how this works, whatever.

Um, an apostle is uh a, well, let me put it this way.

Uh Norm Geisler in his systematic theology book says, All apostles were elders, but not all elders are apostles.

An elder is an office in the church, apostleship is a gift to specific individuals in the church.

Not only were the elders in the New Testament, the church's foundation according to Ephesians 2.20, they were its ruling authority.

They appointed the elders in Acts 1.23 and Titus 1.5.

Their teaching being God's revelation was the church's basis in Acts 2.42, and they settled doctrinal disputes in Acts 15 and Galatians 2.

So this is an interesting passage in that Paul being an apostle, whose earmarks included seeing Jesus.

So the very specific first century big A apostle was a very specific early church thing.

In that authority, he's giving them, he's giving the church a prescription of what they are to do.

Why?

Well, it addresses both issues.

Number one, hand that one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

The church in this moment has made an individual comfortable in their sin.

An unrepentant sin.

This person's not struggling.

It's not a struggle with like, I'm really trying to change.

It's like, nope, this is me.

This is who this is.

This is, I think this is okay.

And the church has surrounded that individual, preventing that person from feeling the weight of that to a certain extent.

And that's that's an issue.

Here's the thing: that person's really comfortable, right?

Shouldn't that be a good thing?

Shouldn't they be, you know, feeling good about that?

Isn't that the goal?

If you love on a person enough, then eventually they will just come to the right conclusion.

Um here, he's telling the church stop being a protective barrier around this individual to where they don't feel the depth and the consequences of their sin.

It's like getting all of the blessings of the body without actually really being a part of the body, and that's a problem.

I mean, imagine uh trying to siphon off of the body of Christ with Christ as the head and uh being not having to actually take up your cross and follow him.

That's a bit of an issue with that, obviously.

And that sin is going to this is going to destroy that person and everybody around them.

There is a cancer issue issue involved in that.

Uh, there is an I mean, we're talking early church, right?

They don't have the whole like Bible, 66 books handed to them, established, canonized, things like that.

They have they have what they have, they have uh the work of the Lord through the work of the apostles and such here.

And imagine what it looks like when somebody goes, you know what?

Actually, I think sexual sin is fine within the church.

I guarantee there's a number of people within that church that's like, cool, that sounds good.

It's very, very easy to infect the whole group in that sense, making sin feel okay.

And it is a loving act to remove the comfort and the protection of the church in that sense, and the blessing of the body that should be an indication of uh headship under the Lord, the way that they act.

You look in the beginning of Acts and how they are acting and caring for one another and taking care of one another, the removal of that, saying you can't have the dessert without the veggies, if we're lack of a better way to say that, and to say, like you can't live the way you want to, and yet call yourself a follower of Jesus for the destruction of the flesh, so that the implications of their sin and the desolation and the separation can truly be felt in that sense.

So that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

This is not you're gross and we want you to suffer.

This is our heart is grieved, and we don't want you to feel comfortable in a state of self-destruction.

The goal is the spirit being saved in the day of the Lord.

So there's love involved in that.

There should be a goal in that.

And also, very, very clear.

We're talking about a very specific, easily identifiable scriptural sin here, right?

This is not just New Testament.

This is not an indiscriminate, we've decided that you no longer fit in well with us.

Or you've made the leadership mad, or you're not fit, you're not fitting into this culture.

It's a specific, very clear scene issue.

So we've got to be careful how you paint that.

But having that said, that addresses one of the issues.

It also addresses the other issue.

How?

What was the other issue?

They're arrogant about it and they're not grieved and move to act.

And here, Paul is calling on the church, the congregation, to get up and do something.

To actually act, to move, and be willing to do so.

It's very, very easy to look at this and look at it and be like, well, he what he's really doing, he's probably telling the church leaders that they're supposed to pull this person aside, and then Matthew 18 them, and all these different things.

He's talking to the church who has approved of this behavior, and he's also addressing them and saying, You guys actually need to act like a body.

And that is a very interesting uh exhortation in here that we often.

And why am I saying that?

Because we have very much so in stereotype painting with a broad brush, we've turned it into a spectatorship, obviously.

You come to church, you say, you get your coffee, you sing those songs, you greet one another, unless you're an introvert, and then you okay, we're back, and then we have the message, and then afterwards, and we greet each other, you talk to your friends, and then you go to lunch.

And that's nothing wrong with those things.

Those are good things.

But there's more to be had in the life of the Christian.

That is a very vital, important, crucial part of it.

It's a part of it.

I'll get more to that in a moment.

So it's interesting here that Paul is telling a church that is very comfortable to get uncomfortable and to actually take responsibility.

So, to take responsibility for their body.

And here's the point in this is that grace and holiness must be held in tension.

If you go one direction or the other really far, then you can see how ugly it gets.

Because if you're sitting there and going, well, this person is, they're a part of us, they're one of us, they've been here a long time, they we really like them, then you're doing grace to the point of it no longer being grace.

It actually just being uh indulgence of the flesh that leads to destruction.

Holiness is really important, but it's done so in a way, talking about clear-cut sin for an unrepentant individual who claims to be a Christian.

This is not also indiscriminately done towards like, we're gonna start hacking off body parts just in case.

Nobody, I mean, that's a bad sign when if we sit there and we go, like, you know what, I've got a little bit of a growth on my finger.

I'm not sure.

It could be nothing, it could be cancer.

I'm just gonna take off the finger, just to be safe.

That's a bit of an issue, too.

Um, and you're that sounds that sounds absurd, but sometimes uh I'm sure that we've all heard of or experienced cultures in that way too.

Grace intention held in holiness.

That is not easy.

That is not an easy thing to do.

Because we want quick answers and we want easy answers.

That is how do you do both of those?

You walk with Jesus and you stay close to him and you keep your eyes on him and pray for his guidance in that sense.

So, first chunk in that.

We have two issues: the individual and the arrogant slash indulgent body.

Two solutions.

Remove the individual in hopes that it brings about repentance, and church, you better get up and do something to actually get past your complacent arrogance in that sense.

So he continues with a caveat here in verse 9.

I wrote to you in a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.

I didn't mean the sexually immoral people of the world, or the greedy and swindlers are idolaters, otherwise, you would have to leave the world.

And continuing in verse 11, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister in a sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or verbally abusive, a drunkard or a swindler.

Don't even eat with such a person.

So he's clarifying here.

What are we talking about?

We're talking about the body.

We're not talking about those who are on the outside.

Uh it is still amazing to me how often we are shocked that people who don't follow Jesus act like they don't follow Jesus.

I mean, that's what people do.

That's the entire reason Jesus came, is because that is what we do, is that we are slaves to sin prior to his salvation.

That's that's what happens.

And so he's saying, look, I told you not to associate with sexual moral people.

I didn't mean the sexual moral people of the world.

If you did that, you'd have to just you know cloister yourself out of the world and never interact with them.

And that's not what we're called to do in that sense.

And so he's saying in verse 11, I urge you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or a sister.

So within the body, if you have a sick body part, unless you happen to be a doctor, it's not okay to start treating other people's illnesses without permission.

If you don't sit there like with a like a med kid and start going, like, I think you might be sick, I'm gonna go take care of that to a stranger, like walking down the street.

That's not okay.

We deal with our own body, and that's what he's calling us to do here.

Here's an interesting thing, too.

How did we start this chapter with somebody in really, really gross sexual sin, right?

So we've kind of seasoned the passage in that sense.

And so by the time we get to verse 11, we go, and I don't want not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother, sister, and it's sexually immoral.

Don't even eat with such a person.

There's a whole list here.

Isn't that interesting?

There's more to this.

Um why do I say there's more to this?

Because once again, in the in the strange culture that we've come through in the last 30, maybe 30 years, um there we we've built it to where there's sexual sin, and then there's other sins.

And then there's my sins down here.

Uh just maybe, I don't know.

I fully got that's that's a that's a human issue that you know we all can struggle with that.

Um sin is sin.

Sin is a uh is a violation against the righteousness of God, it is a destruction of self and others, it is a rebellion against the Creator.

And so with that in mind, there's a lot here that he lists here: sexually moral, greedy, idolater, verbally abusive, drunkard, swindler.

And I would venture to think and believe that he's not making a categorical list of these are the exact specific things you guys have to look for.

Here's your list, write it down and start checking it.

It's more, you look at these lists, and these are people, these are kinds of things that really infect the body, right?

They really can not affect not only the individual but spread quickly.

Sexual morality, of course, greed, idolatry, abuse, drunkenness, ripoff artists, all of these things.

So if we jump back, you guys are probably like, you forgot a whole chunk.

I didn't.

Verse 6, jumping back.

Your boasting is not good.

Don't you know that little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough?

These are sins representative of things that really can infect the whole body.

And we need to be a healthy body.

You can't be a healthy body by just taking care of yourself, by just looking out for yourself.

You can't be a healthy body by attacking anybody who's not you either.

There is there's healthy balance, intention, and all of these things.

But he's telling them in verse 7, this prescription, clean out the old leaven, so that you may be a new unleavened batch, as indeed you are.

Passover imagery here.

The bread was to be unleavened.

Clean out the old leaven.

And the the and the the Jews in the church of Corinth would know what he's talking about.

This idea of purging the house of any remote sense of leaven so that they can't accidentally sin in this way.

Clean out the old leaven, purge it from your house so that you're a new unleavened batch, as indeed you are.

For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.

The feast has begun.

Why is there still leaven?

Is him asking that.

So observe the feast, not with the old leaven or the leaven of malice and evil, but with unleavened bread of its sincerity and truth.

There should be a change there.

There should be a difference there.

And a difference within the body.

Not a difference of how we react to those outside the body.

Jumping forward again.

Verse 12.

What business is it of mine to judge outsiders?

Don't you judge those who are inside?

And he says in verse 11, don't even eat with such a person.

Meals were a big deal back then.

You look, you look at that, it's it's having a meal with someone wasn't just like a uh a business venture, or hey, we're hanging out, or hey, we you I met with you, you're not with me, cool, or whatever.

This was a big deal.

You're sharing your home, you're sharing yourself, you're experiencing that.

And he's saying, like, don't partake in that way.

But what business is it of mine to judge outsiders?

Don't you judge those who are inside?

God judges outsiders.

Uh, do we believe for those of us who follow Christ, do we believe that God was the one who brought us to salvation?

That was an easy question.

Do we then believe that God can also bring others to repentance?

So the goal here, speaking broadly, is not to bring people into intense who don't know Jesus, into intense awareness of their sin.

The goal is to bring them the good news that the Savior has come.

God is the one who convicts of sin.

There's nuance there, of course.

I'm not I'm not saying like categorically boom, boom, boom, boom.

There's those kin that's there's I'm giving a bit of an excluded middle here.

There's it's a both hands.

But still, having that said, the goal here for the outsider is to proclaim the glory of God, to proclaim the goodness of his salvation.

And the goal of the inside is to act as a body that actually represents the head well in such a way.

How crazy is it if we're telling people, God is so good, God has saved us, Jesus is coming, Jesus is good, and then the body is uh cancerous and not only full of sin, but full of outrage and wrath and malice and indulgence and complacency and all the other things that can live within my own heart very easily.

It is crazy how often we reverse this: indulging the bubble, railing against the world.

And that doesn't mean you need to rail against the bubble and indulge the world either.

There's what we say at the beginning, the church is a body, and we grow with healthy friction and stressors, exercise, rest, not just comfort, comfort, comfort, indulgence, indulgence, indulgence in that sense.

And that's become too often what we expect in Western 21st century evangelical church.

Um you come to church for comfort, for encouragement, right?

And you should, that's not a bad thing.

I mean, the conclusion to the sermon is not be discouraging.

You know, take the speck out of other people's eyes.

Don't worry about the logging your own.

That's not what I'm that's not what we're saying here, but the saying is the goal here is how do we act in holiness as a body in health?

Because we often just go over here, and then we go over to here, because we go, they did it wrong, we're doing it right, and then we go over here.

No, no, clearly they did it wrong, we're doing it right, over here, back and forth, then back and forth, and it's just how do we how do we do this?

How do we do this in health?

What is our application here?

Because we've talked about what Paul is communicating to this church, which is good.

What does that have to do with us?

Um chairs, there is a survey for what kind of sins you are struggling with.

There's not.

No.

If that was true, please feel free to get up and leave.

Um come back next week, though, because someone will be teaching, someone else will be teaching.

So uh, but with that, that's not the goal here.

Because when we're looking at this, this is a specific situation where he's calling a church to act, he's calling a church body to act, who has become complacent around sin.

I don't believe that's us, right?

I don't believe that that is something to where we have so uh rallied around clearly unbiblical behavior that uh there needs to be a big change in that.

So that's not where we're going with that.

But let's flip down the positive, because you're calling them act.

What does it look like to act?

What does it look like to be a healthy body part that exercises, that consumes in a healthy way, that does so for the good of all, that grows?

What does that look like in this in this day and age and in this world?

Well, this is the beginning of 2023.

This is usually when we're bringing out our uh resolutions, right?

And our like we're going to this year is the year we are going to commit to that gym membership for January, maybe February.

March is like, if we uh or we're going to do this thing, we're going to get better at this thing, we're going to okay, all those different kinds of resolutions.

Um what do we do as a body?

We grow.

What does that look like?

Well, we we follow the Lord.

We follow him, we seek after him, we dive into his work regularly.

We have healthy actions and interactions as a body.

We have healthy accountability for our blind spots.

Run.

Be healthy.

Here's why I say that.

Because we not only have with broad strokes in the last few decades, turned church into a spectator event, but we also have such an intense phobia of legalism that anything that involves like effort seems to be a bad thing.

Anything that involves uh work sounds like works.

And that's crazy.

So how do we grow not in a healthy way?

Um, well, number one, what's our motivation to do so?

What's our motivation to um be a healthy body that actually grows right, that cuts off that which is which is unhealthy, that does those things.

Um it should be the joy of the relationship with the savior.

And that is crucial, because if it is the um the guilt of uh I should or I should have or I didn't do good enough, that's problematic.

If it is the pressure of the, well, this person over here is doing so much better than me, and they're so much holier than me, and I need to do, I need to step up my game and keeping up with the spiritual Joneses in that sense.

That's also a problem.

But capturing the joy of our salvation and having that bear fruit into action is the best way I can think of to be healthy, and that will bring about healthy friction and stressors and seasons of rest that will bring about healthy consumption and rejection of things that are not that way.

But and I'm I'm preaching the choir here, that's the good news with that.

That's the blessing because I know most of you, but laziness is not next to godliness.

And it's okay to be motivated, and it's okay to do that.

What does that look like?

I mean, some practical things.

Super easy things with that.

Uh, and I'm not giving you a checklist, it's just ideas with that.

Uh, how many of you, just by a show of hands, know somebody else in this room?

Cool, okay, that's good.

That's that's that's nice with that.

What would happen if, you know, in appropriate context, you met with somebody else in this room twice a month, read through scripture together.

Pray for one another, that's it.

30 minutes, an hour if there's coffee.

What would happen if we actually memorized scriptures at a pace that's reasonable?

Not to say, hey, I checked this off, but actually got it within us and thought about throughout the whole day.

What does that mean?

What does that look like?

How does that work?

Um transparent.

I love scripture, I love to read that.

I have intense ADD with prayer.

That's my discipline.

That's the thing that I need to continue to grow in.

Is how do I just sit with the Lord and not go?

Yeah.

Or more commonly, huh.

That you know, that's don't that's the uh what he what I've already gotten that exciting, how do I spend more time in that way?

Um Hebrews 12, I love, because Hebrews 11 is this huge list of people who have run well, who have had faith, intense faith, that called them into action, that called them into sacrifice, that called them into holiness, that called in even in, and certainly not perfectly when you read that list.

Uh and then you have Hebrews 12.

So if I read Hebrews 12 1 through 2.

Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin which so easily ensnares us.

Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith.

For the joy that was before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Isn't that beautiful?

Isn't that amazing?

I just, as I'm sitting here, beginning of the year, what a that just really just rings true for me, this idea of how do we keep our eyes on Jesus?

As a result, how do we run with endurance?

Because Jesus endured the cross with joy, despising the shame, and as a result, he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Isn't that beautiful?

Isn't that amazing?

That's just my uh encouragement as we look at this here.

How do we get up and grow as an outpouring of the joy that He has put within us, as an outpouring of the Christ that we follow, whose image we want to be conformed to.

And that is really just something I see here as an encouragement as I look through this passage of like, what does it look like for a body that's comfortable?

That's for a look like a body that has become complacent and unhealthy in that sense.

And Paul calls them to just get up and do something, and here he calls us to keep our eyes on Jesus.

Any any issue with that part?

Anyone like object to keeping our eyes on Jesus?

Cool.

It's amazing.

I'm curious what this year looks like for us if we do that, because I can't tell you what that is.

I don't have a plan for your life.

Sorry.

But uh with that, what I do know is that if we keep our eyes on him and we run with endurance and we set aside the hindrances and the things that ensnare us, that um we'll be conformed more in Martini's image.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for this morning.

I thank you that you are good.

I thank you that you are great, that you are holy, I thank you that you are kind, and I thank you that you are patient and you are loving, and you are merciful, and you are righteous.

And Lord, I ask that we would not just simply look at this passage and say, Lord, I thank you that I am not like this sinner.

But rather that we would trust you to clean house within ourselves, to sweep out the leaven, that we would rejoice in the goodness that you are the good shepherd, and we can follow you.

That we can run with endurance, as you did, knowing that you have overcome the world.

Lord, I ask that we would be a healthy body, that we would be a small bee body group of believers who just supports you as the head and loves one another deeply and follows you.

Please continue to guide us and lead us and grow us and be glorified in your name.

Amen.