Embodied Image Bearer | What Do Our Bodies Tell Us About God?

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Great to be with you.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

If you're new, my name's Ryan, or if we've not yet met, uh thrilled to have you here today.

Um, twelve and a half years ago, we began awakening with this driving passion, this singular mission that we exist to awaken this generation to new life in Jesus.

Now, every single church has one missional mandate from Jesus.

That's to go and make disciples.

And yet every church uh fulfills that mission.

And am I like staticky in there?

Or is it just my own ears?

Just go with it.

Just go with it?

Is it?

I'm just trying to make sure I'm not doing anything.

All right, how are we doing?

We good?

Okay.

Um where was I?

Oh, every church fulfills that mission uh uniquely.

It's incredible, and that's why we need every single church, especially in the valley and everywhere else, so that every tongue, tribe, and nation is reached.

For us at awakening, we're called uh to be a church of every single generation that reaches this generation.

Now to accomplish that mission requires a group of committed core people that says, I'm not just going to church, I am the church.

I'm not here to consume, I'm here to contribute.

I'm not a spectator, but I have a stakehold.

I want to make this my church.

When we began it uh 12 years ago, we called this group, this committed core leadership, uh, because they were having impact and influence.

And yet it we found quickly found that it created some confusion because those that were serving in such significant, meaningful, kingdom, incredible ways were confused.

They're like, is that for me?

I don't feel like a leader, but this is my church and I'm serving.

And so we kept getting that question: is this for me?

So we decided to bring clarity and we uh hopefully revamped and made things better.

Instead of calling it leadership, we're calling it membership.

Does it make sense?

You with me so far?

I know it's rainy, but I'm not sure if you're with me so far.

Here we go.

Membership.

Uh, and so I am a member of Awakening.

This is my church.

And this past August, we launched 201 Membership, uh, where we did a sermon series.

It was literally called 201, the profile of a disciple.

Uh and we went through the five core characteristics of what it means to be a disciple.

And then over that time we had a commitment night.

And this was a time to say for those who are ready, this is my church.

I'm all in.

I want to be a part of this mission and this community.

And on that time, that night, we had 126 people who made that commitment.

Uh, and so today, in our time together, I want to take a moment and honor those uh in our service who said, I'm all in.

These are people who give sacrificially, serve with passion and dedication, and set the atmosphere for our church.

And so, if you made that commitment, would you please stand up so we can honor you?

Yes, go ahead.

Stand on up.

I know you're like, I don't really want to stand up, but please stand up, go for it more.

Stay standing, stay standing, stay standing.

Yes, you can thank them.

Stay standing, stay standing.

This will this won't be long.

It's okay.

You'll you'll survive it.

You make awakening possible.

From kids, youth, college, young adults, cafe, connection, alpha, worship, del Mar, service, food pantry, baptism.

Everything we do is built on your faithful yes.

Because of you, heaven is expanding.

Because of you, lives are transformed.

Because of you, families are being restored, and a generation is reached.

Awakening would not be what it is today without you.

And so thank you.

And everyone else, can we take a moment to thank them as well?

Now you may be seated.

This is just the beginning for us, friends.

If we want to see this mission turn into a movement of God in Silicon Valley, it takes every single one of us.

We must move from consumers to contributors.

We must step out of our comfort zone in order to step into our calling.

This next week, next Sunday, we're launching our first membership class, Awakening 201.

Awakening 101 that's happening after the service is your first step.

We want to help you get connected, help discover is this uh place I want to lean in and grow.

Awakening 201 is your next step to going deeper, growing, and discerning, is this my church?

Uh my prayer is that that 126 will double over the next six months.

And so there's many of you already in this room that says, I'm in.

You've been coming, you've decided awakening's our home church.

Then would you make it official?

Would you sign up for 201?

It's a three-week class, uh, and it's happening during the 11:15 p.m.

a.m.

service, not PM service, that would be late.

Uh and here's the deal.

If you have to choose between 201 or a service, I want to encourage you to go to 201.

Uh we we upload all of our content.

Wherever you download content, you can get our sermons.

We do not uh stream our 201, and I'd rather have you there.

And here's the reason why the church God is calling us to be, the lighthouse for those lost at sea, the safe haven for the weary, the wandering, the hope that pierces through the darkness.

It requires all of us.

And so let's lean in, let's commit, let's take our place, because this generation is waiting.

Amen.

Amen.

You can clap for that.

That would be wonderful.

Thank you for that.

Hey, let's pray.

Okay, all right.

I don't know.

We're confused on what we're gonna do today.

There we go.

Jesus, thanks for this time, thanks for this group, thanks for gathering us.

Thank you for those who have led the way, who have prepared this space for us to encounter you.

I thank you for those serving in our kids' ministry right now who are uh loving on kids to help them come to know you.

I thank you for those serving with our um junior hires at youth camp right now that are sacrificing their time so that uh teenagers might have a life-changing encounter with you.

And so, Jesus, we just invite you here to speak to us, to meet with us.

That we would hear from your word and be changed by you.

And that we would be your hands and feet of hope to a hurting world.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

We're in a series called Foundations, a beginner's guide to the universe.

We've been wrestling really with this question: what are you building your life on?

We're all building our life on something.

Often we don't take time or inventory to really realize what we're building our lives on.

Some of it's our career or success or financial security.

Some of us are chasing adventure or your family or self-actualization.

Others, well, you're running on nothing but cold proof and raw ambition right now.

This is the valley, isn't it?

But what if?

What if there's actually a design?

What if the universe isn't random and life isn't a game you hack to get ahead?

The opening chapter of Genesis 1 isn't about how, just how the world began.

It's about why it all matters.

The origin story is also the foundation story, a guide to how reality works and what it means to be human.

We started five weeks ago where he said, in the beginning, God.

What a beautiful reality that the story of the universe begins with God.

He is at the center of it all, and that God created, which means that you are not a cosmic accident.

You have purpose and intention and design.

Your life matters.

And then we asked, week two, what is God up to in the world and in my life?

And God has always been up to the same thing, it's bringing beauty from chaos.

He's a God that brings order to the confusion.

And then we looked at, well, we have this inclination of good, and we see this around in the midst of such a hurting, broken world, and we asked, where did oh boy, good come from?

And the incredible reality that God is good.

And all that he created is good.

He is both the author of good and the definer of it.

And so life works best.

We said this, life works best according to his design.

When we operate our life and we step in, you want to experience the good life.

We're all chasing, that's our foundation, right?

The good life.

It begins and is founded in God Himself, for He alone is good.

He's the one our hearts long for.

Last week, Carolyn Takeda talked about what does it mean to be human?

You see that?

There you go.

Oh, got one on this other side too.

You know, originally I was gonna do a building block with all these, and that's just too heavy.

So I chose one.

I was like, I can only do one brick this whole time.

There we go.

But what does it mean to be human?

We live in a cultural moment that's wildly confused about what it means to be human.

In the age of AI and anxiety, the question isn't just who I am, but what am I?

Are we just biological machines?

Highly evolved primates?

Consciousness temporarily trapped in skin and bone?

You know what's interesting about humans is humans are curiously unfinished at birth.

We're the only species that actually questions our own existence.

We know more about the human body than ever before, yet we seem more confused about what it means to be human than ever before.

And so we want to double-click on this conversation.

What does it mean to be human?

And ask another question in that.

What do our bodies tell us about God?

What if the way we're made tells us something about the one who made us?

Genesis 1, I love Caroline used this language, this imagery.

Genesis 1 takes us back to the source code, the blueprint for what it means to be human, to be an embodied image bearer.

And so if you got your Bibles, would you open up to Genesis 1 verse 26?

Genesis 1:26

And if you don't, no problem.

We have it right there in your notes.

You can open up your notes and follow along.

Genesis 1 verse 26 says, Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the lyssec and all the wild animals, and over all creatures that move along the ground.

Genesis 1:26

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them, and God blessed them.

Say that word blessed with me.

Blessed.

Say it one more time.

Blessed.

We're gonna end with there, we're gonna close our sermon there.

God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful, increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, and over every living creature that moves on the ground.

What does it mean to be human?

What do our bodies tell us about God?

Fundamentally, what we see here, this is the big idea of the sermon, is our bodies are a part of God's good design.

Your body, my body, all our bodies are a part of God's good design.

You know, the Greeks, when they thought about the body, they thought about the human body, the physical body, as fundamentally flawed, as evil, as bad.

The spirit was good and the body was evil, and as a result, uh you can do whatever you want with your body because it doesn't matter, it is the corruptible part of you, whereas your spirit is the divine perfectible part of you.

Gnostic thought uh viewed the body actually as a prison for the divine spark within.

And so the goal is to escape your body, somehow to be free of these limitations that we're bound by.

Today we tend to see the body as a problem to solve, don't we?

Software to update or hardware to hack, as if humanity is something to optimize instead of embrace.

The biblical narrative begins with our physical bodies are actually a part of God's good design.

What does this mean?

First, your body has divine dignity, your body has divine dignity.

He said, Let us make mankind in our image, likeness.

This is actually one of the most radical statements in the ancient world.

Uh Genesis begins when he's talking about humanity and the beginning with um royal language.

In the ancient world, uh, only kings were talked about having the very image of God.

And here we see this incredible reality.

All of humanity, every single person has royalty of God imprinted on them.

Would you do this for me?

Would you just turn to your neighbor and look at them and say, You're royal?

You're royal.

Now, not a royal pain in the butt.

That's not what we're talking about here.

You're royal.

Did you say that?

You said that.

I can't believe that.

It was supposed to be an encouragement.

No, right?

You're royal.

Your body has divine dignity.

No matter your race, gender, wealth, ability, or background, you bear the divine image.

Every single person on the planet has divine dignity.

The newborn baby in the NICU, the elderly woman with dementia, the young CEO, the refugee fleeing from war, the Palestinian, the Israeli, the Ukrainian, the Russian, the black, the brown, white, all endowed with divine dignity.

And so your worth isn't something you produce.

Your value isn't in what you contribute.

Your identity isn't something you invent.

It's something you receive because you bear the royal image of God.

In our culture, we're actually consumed, not that my body has divine dignity, but with this idol of optimization.

The idol of optimization goes something like this: my body is actually a project to be perfected.

Shows up in a few different ways.

Biohacking, transhumanism, and then I want to get to social media.

Let's talk about biohacking.

My body is a system that needs to be optimized.

Supplements, workout routines, blood transfusions, somehow to perfect longevity, to live forever.

Over Christmas, we're kind of as a family watching, trying to find something to watch you do that.

You're like hanging out, trying to like, what are we gonna watch?

And then we came across this documentary on Netflix called Don't Die.

And we were like, okay, let's watch it.

It's weird, by the way.

I'm just probably not a family flick.

I'd encourage you to watch it though.

It's strange.

Don't Die.

The subtitle is The Man Who Wants to Live Forever, following uh uh tech billionaire Brian Johnson.

He's so focused, if you watch this, he's so focused on living longer.

It seems like he's not really living at all.

Yet we're focused on this optimization, biohacking.

How do I optimize myself for the longest possible run I can have?

To stave off death.

Transhumanism says my body is an outdated hardware that needs to be upgraded.

The body needs to be transcended and merged with technology to achieve immortality.

Human bodies fundamentally are flawed, limited, and temporary.

This is very much a Gnostic worldview.

And so the goal perhaps is to upload your consciousness so that you can achieve digital immortality, or we can bring the dead back to life digitally.

Neural implants merging the mind with machine.

You know, Elon Musk has been in the news a lot lately, hasn't he?

But he hasn't been in the news so much for this.

He runs a company called Neuralink.

Neuralink is uh working to link the brain with uh computer chips.

And they're in their human trials right now of how do you basically uh you know optimize the human uh with technology.

Genetic engineering, now we can uh the future holds that you could potentially have a designer baby.

You pick the eye color, hair color, height, smartness, all those sort of things.

Eliminate through genetic uh editing, uh the age desk so that we can live forever.

Did you know this?

This is something I found out this week, by the way.

I had no idea this is a thing.

Head transplants, they're doing it with animals, but they're trying to figure out how to do it with humans.

So let's just say your body is kind of decaying, going to bad, but your head's pretty good.

They're like, let's just put your head on a different body.

Whew! That one was weird.

They all are actually.

And some of these feel so far out from us, like they don't have any personal impact.

This is Silicon Valley, this is the world we live in.

And yet, when we talk about social media, when we think about our body, it's a we fundamentally look at my body as a brand to curate, don't we?

Comparison culture fuels insecurity and self-obsession.

Self-worth shifts from being God's image bearer to being image perfect.

Your body has divine dignity, and the gospel declares that your body is actually the very temple of God.

1 Corinthians 6, 19 says, Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you receive from God?

You're not your own, you are bought at a price.

Therefore, honor God with your what?

Oh, come on, people.

Help me out today.

Honor God with your what?

Isn't that interesting?

Sometimes we so spiritualize Christianity we miss out the physicalness of it.

He didn't say honor God with your mind, which that Jesus does say love God with your mind.

There's a place for that.

He says, honor God with your bodies, because your physical body matters and is part of his good design.

In the Old Testament, if you wanted to meet with God, you went to the temple.

It was a sacred space set apart, holy, where heaven and earth touched.

The temple wasn't worshipped, but it was honored, carefully maintained because of who dwells in it.

Now you are the temple, the Spirit of God, the very presence of God as a follower of Jesus resides in you.

Your body isn't just a project to be uh to perfect or a product to market, it's a sacred space where heaven and earth meet.

Your body has divine dignity.

And here we find also your sexuality is sacred.

Your sexuality is sacred.

So God created mankind in his own image.

In the image of God, he created them.

Both male and female, he created them.

Your sexuality, your maleness, and your femaleness is a part of the Imago Day.

Together, male and female reflect God.

Sex and sexuality are good and ordained by God as a part of creation.

Touching on what Carolyn talked last week, male and female begins with this breathtaking equality.

Imago Dei royal.

And yet, in this equality, there's a difference by design.

Together, by the way, together we make up the Imago Dei.

Yes, we are individuals, and yet there is this community.

Let us make humanity in our image, and the image of God, He created them, male and female.

It's together as a community that we reflect most accurately the Imago Dei of God.

In our culture, sexuality has become a kind of religion, hasn't it?

Rather than God inventing sex and gender and sexuality, sexuality has become an idol.

I call it the idol of sexual autonomy.

Here's what we have in the streams of our world, the creed today, sexually, is this way.

My body, my rules.

My body, my rules.

In identity dysphoric society, we've attached ultimate value, meaning, and personhood to our sexuality and gender.

What's interesting, the biblical narrative begins that sex is actually good and created within God's design.

God invented it.

We're sexual before we're sinful.

That we're actually sexual and spiritual at the same time.

You can't bifurcate those.

But that you're actually more than your sexuality.

The gospel says your sexuality and gender are important, but it's not the most important thing about you.

Your Imago Day is.

The mantra today, what we believe, is you are a sexual being with cravings, appetites, and desires.

You have the right to fulfill the appetite or with whomever you wish, however you wish, wherever you wish.

As long as it's consensual.

You're sexual being, and to restrict yourself in any way.

That is the greatest evil.

It's just an appetite.

Fulfill it however you wish.

What's wild is food, which we actually will die without, where sex we won't, by the way.

Just thought I'd let you know that one.

If you don't have sex, you don't die, but if you don't eat, you die.

Anyways, kind of challenge our whole appetite thing there.

But none of us would say we can eat whatever we want whenever we want, and we're gonna not experience any negative reality, right?

Okay, just full transparency.

Yesterday, um I'm working on eating a little bit healthier.

I am.

I'm not a good um, I don't do well with um vegetables.

And so I was like, I'm I'm gonna supplement those.

It's fantastic.

Uh and yet last night, after playing basketball with my boys, I was wiped out.

I was so hungry.

And then one of my sons, he's got so much candy, and he doesn't ever eat it.

I have a major sweet tooth.

Major sweet tooth.

And so we're hanging out, and I was like, hey, uh, you don't happen to have any uh Reese's Pieces, you know, peanut butter cups, do you?

Knowing full well he did, I saw them as he walked in.

Like, any any chance you could give me your dear old dad a little bit of that?

He's like, yeah, whatever.

And he gives me this tin uh that he had, and it had like a bunch of the little guys.

I was expecting just a little pack because I saw he had those two.

Uh, and he it had a bunch of the little guys.

I had one.

I had two.

Eventually I crumpled up the ones that I ate, threw them in because I was ashamed of how many I ate, and but there's still more there.

I had another one, another two, another three, then I crumpled those up.

I finished the whole thing.

And I'm proud of it.

The reality is, as we all know, if I just live on peanut butter cups, that's not gonna help me.

Right?

And yet we begin to believe I can do whatever I want with whoever I want.

I get to define my sexuality however I want, and yet God says, no, I actually have woven it into the fabric of creation itself.

The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 would say this: that your body is made for God.

It tells a very different story.

I have the right to do anything you say, but not everything's beneficial.

I have the right to eat as much chocolate as I want, but it may not be beneficial.

I have the right to do anything, but you'll not be mastered by anything.

So often we define freedom in our culture as the ability to say yes or yeah.

And yet, freedom often is the ability to say no.

Right?

At 21, we're like, I have the freedom to drink, woo! Which that is a freedom.

Little young, little young.

And yet we know if you cannot choose not to drink, that's an addiction.

You say food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.

It's just an appetite.

The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

God's good design, and he longs for you to experience his goodness, and the best good is him.

You are designed and hardwired and created for God.

In fact, I like how Christopher West writes it.

He says, the sexual confusion so prevalent in our world and in our own hearts is simply the human desire for heaven gone berserk.

It's a longing for heaven.

The world sees sexuality as personal preference, but God sees it as a purposeful design.

It's not a playground for self-discovery, it's a sacred gift of God.

Your body, your body is part of God's good design, has divine dignity, your sexuality is sacred.

And finally, your embodiment, your physicalness is eternal.

Notice that it said, God bless them.

I just want you to like chew.

I would love for you to chew on this thought for the rest of the week.

God made humanity to bless them.

God made you to bless you.

And then he placed them in a garden, fully physical, to be with him.

And the goal was not for a time, but forever.

And our hearts, by the way, are longing for a return to the garden.

A longing for a return to be fully present, physically present, in the presence of our Heavenly Father.

Not just any Heavenly Father, the Father who loves you and longs to bless you.

And the greatest blessing he can ever give to you, since he is alone good, is Himself.

And what we do is we tend to think of eternity as a disembodied state, don't we?

I don't know who said this.

Where this idea, like this floating souls, harps, clouds, like when you think of heaven, isn't that the picture that's often comes to mind?

I don't know about you, but often when I think about heaven, or at least sometimes people explain heaven, it's not all that exciting.

Like why?

When my kids were little, the way I'd explain heaven is this way.

Heaven is the very best of earth and way, way better.

That's heaven.

Heaven is fundamentally earthy, by the way.

Revelations talks about a new heaven and a new earth.

Heaven is actually God restoring and redeeming our planet, taking out the evil and the heartache and the pain, and Him bringing life and all that is good and flourishing.

Oh, that we would be a people that have a picture of heaven, so that when Jesus said that we'd bring heaven to earth, we would be those types of uh Christians in our workplaces at our schools.

Instead, we just have this sense of like, well, I just want to get by and get through.

In our culture today, we have the idol of self-deification.

I can become God-like.

Yval Harari in his sequel to Sapiens Homo Duos said this: humanity's next targets are likely to be immorality, happiness, and divinity.

Having reduced mortality from starvation, disease, and violence, we now aim to overcome old age and even death itself.

Having saved people from abject misery, we'll now aim to make them positively happy.

We don't know how to make them positively happy, but we aim to do it.

And having raised humanity above the beastly level of survival struggles, we now aim to upgrade humans into gods and turn Homo sapiens into homodus.

This is not new.

This was the first temptation in the garden.

Eat this and you'll be like God.

And the reality was God had already imprinted his image on them.

He's like, you're already a reflection of me.

Your future, the gospel tells us, is bodily resurrection.

A new body.

Again, back to 1 Corinthians 6.

By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.

Technology dreams of eliminating death.

Jesus already conquered it.

And Jesus didn't rise from the dead just as this spiritual, ghostly figure.

He rose bodily with hands that we could touch.

That he rose in such a way that he showed up to his disciples.

And he said, See the scars in my hand.

Touch the wound on my side.

And they were like afraid of him.

And he's like, Does a ghost, can a ghost eat?

He sat down and ate with them.

The resurrection is not an escape from the body, it is the renewal of the body.

Jesus took on flesh and never left it.

The stunning scandal of the incarnation, that the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, would step into humanity, take on flesh, then suffer at the hands of his own creation, defeating death, but he has not just taken on flesh for a time, he's taken on flesh for all time.

He became one of us to be of first fruits, the first resurrection of what's to come for all of us.

Your future is bodily resurrection.

And your body will one day be raised, not just your spirit.

So how do you live as an embodied image bearer?

Let me just give you a couple of practical things.

First, would you be present in your body?

Your body's not a burden, it's a gift from God.

So slow down, breathe, eat, sleep.

We need to recover a theology of senses.

Taste, touch, smell, sight, sound.

God wants to meet us in all of our senses.

Like even just now, just take a deep breath in.

As we close our service, I'm just going to give us a moment to just be attuned to what is our body telling us and then how is God wanting to meet us?

Be present in your body.

What if the greatest crisis, uh, spiritual crisis that we no longer inhabit our bodies in the present moment?

Our minds are constantly adrift to what's next.

We live in the digital space.

Be present in your body.

And then honor God with your body.

You are not your own.

You were bought with a price.

Therefore, honor God with your body.

What we do with our bodies matters.

Physically, sexually, relationally.

Honor other bodies as Imago Day.

And here the problem isn't that we don't know who we are so often, it's we've forgotten whose we are.

Or his.

And then finally commit to physical community.

We try to optimize everything.

Be the most efficient.

Relationships are incredibly inefficient, aren't they?

Friendships take time.

Following Jesus is not a solo event.

You cannot do it alone only.

In fact, the picture that Jesus would give is of the body, or the Apostle Paul would give it.

We need one another.

You can download your favorite podcast, listen to whatever book, live stream, whatever.

Those are fantastic, but get into community.

Get with people, get into a small group.

If you're wrestling or new to Jesus, join Alpha.

It's kicking off on Thursday.

But commit to physical community because something happens in this room that doesn't happen online.

And something happens in circles that doesn't just happen in your time alone.

And we need one another.

Living as an embodied image bearer, be present in your body.

Honor God with your body.

Commit to physical community.

So as we close, would you just do this?

Close your eyes.

Take a deep breath in.

Out.

Because we're both spiritual and physical.

What we do with our physical body postures us spiritually.

And so would you just open your hands onto your lap as a physical sign of being open to God?

And I want you just to notice what's going on.

What's going on inside of you?

Maybe there's anxiety where your heart feels racing or anxious or don't judge that.

Just simply bring it to God.

Be present with Him.

God, I'm anxious.

Would you meet me there?

Maybe you're overwhelmed with life.

And so as a result, your mind's been racing.

There's a problem, there's a crisis, there's a hurt, there's a in your mind, you've barely been able to even focus in our time together.

Instead of filling it with ots and shoulds, just simply go, God, my mind's racing.

Would you meet me there?

Maybe your life and week had been chaotic, and when you stepped into this place, you just feel his presence and his peace.

And in experiencing his peace in this moment, would you bring that to him?

Be aware.

It says that you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I'm fearfully and wonderfully made.

As your presence and shame and other lies want to fill your mind and your heart.

Come to the God who longs to bless you and to say you're fearfully and wonderfully made.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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