Made Embodied

[SPEAKER_00]: You are listening to audio from Citizens Church located in Plano, Texas for more information about this ministry or to give to this ministry Please visit citizenschurch.com

[SPEAKER_01]: If you have a Bible, turn to first Corinthians chapter six.

[SPEAKER_01]: We will begin in Genesis, but we will make our way to first Corinthians chapter six.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, if you turn there, we'll end up there.

[SPEAKER_01]: As you're turning there, if you are new to Citizen's Church, my name is Jayman, and I'm one of the pastors here.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we're honored that you're worshiping us with us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do not worship us.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're honored that you're worshiping with us this morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you call Citizen's Home, welcome.

[SPEAKER_01]: I talk about this a lot, I've only got one life to draw from and so I repeat a lot of the same things, but if you've been here for some time, you know about me that I grew up in church and did not just grow up in church, but just did all the church I could possibly do.

[SPEAKER_01]: I went to the church I was a part of and I'd go to the church camps in the denows and my son placed football.

[SPEAKER_01]: He asked me that day, what did your football team do after football games on Friday night and in our town we went to what was called fifth quarter.

[SPEAKER_01]: which was a church held event for the football team after I'd go to all those.

[SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't just go to my church's stuff, I'd go to other church's stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'd go to other churches, church camps, and all of that, I heard so many gospel presentations.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, a lot of these events, they're kind of built around this singular moment of invitation towards the end of the service, and I heard a lot of really special ones, and then I heard many that went like this.

[SPEAKER_01]: If on your way home, you could hit by a bus.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was always a bus, I don't know why.

[SPEAKER_01]: The town needed new bus drivers.

[SPEAKER_01]: If on the way home, you could hit by a bus, do you know where you would spend eternity?

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a hell, and there's a heaven.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you died tonight, where would you go?

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're not completely sure, like if you're not 110% sure, you would go to heaven, pray this prayer, and then they'd pray a prayer.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here, me, I know there are people probably in this room that came to sincere, saving face in response to some sort of gospel presentation like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not trying to undermine that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not, I'm not,

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not at all trying to call that into question.

[SPEAKER_01]: Parts of that can be helpful.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's wisdom and biblical precedent for considering death and eternity to make us think about where we stand with God.

[SPEAKER_01]: But, but that kind of message where I grew up, where I heard it, that kind of message was often associated with a heaven-focused Christian story.

[SPEAKER_01]: Are you with me?

[SPEAKER_01]: Meaning Christianity, the crux of Christianity, is about your soul going to heaven when you die and that's basically the point of all this.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was a shirt, there were so many shirts.

[SPEAKER_01]: One shirt that said this, B-I-B-L-E, and then underneath it it said basic instructions before leaving Earth.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what the Bible is, according to that shirt.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Bible is basic instructions before leaving earth.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that tells a story about Christianity.

[SPEAKER_01]: The whole point of all of this in the cross and all of that is to leave this place.

[SPEAKER_01]: To one day escape this earth and escape these bodies and live forever in non-earthly eternity.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I say all that to say this, a lot of the Christianity and calendar growing up.

[SPEAKER_01]: was after life focused, disembodied spirituality.

[SPEAKER_01]: While I'm encountering that Christianity, there's also something else going on in my childhood.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm growing up with a little brother who is born with Spaniac Bifida.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's never taken a step in his whole life.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's never skipped, he's never kicked a ball, never jumped on a trampoline, never pushed a lawnmower.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's his daily reality.

[SPEAKER_01]: So in my childhood, we split time between two hospitals and Dallas.

[SPEAKER_01]: We went to Children's Hospital.

[SPEAKER_01]: We went to Scottish White Hospital, surgeries, and more surgeries, and complications from surgeries, and we're meeting other families with children with similar disabilities.

[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up around, I grew up around broken bodies.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the only way to understand it.

[SPEAKER_01]: bodies that didn't work the way they should, bodies that had scars from things they never should have needed, bodies that felt pain in ways that never should have happened, bodies that missed out on what they should have gotten to do with all the other kids.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't mean this in any way to be disrespectful, but growing up and all of that, a go-to heaven when you die Christian story just wasn't enough.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just wasn't enough.

[SPEAKER_01]: because it offered spiritual hope to immaterial parts of us, but no physical healing for ways that sin had wrecked our physical world and our physical selves.

[SPEAKER_01]: A Christian story that gets souls to heaven and leaves behind bodies unhealed is a story of escape.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not a story of salvation.

[SPEAKER_01]: In one of the turning points in my relationship with the Lord,

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a season of life where through books and sermons and mentors and pastors and reading scripture for myself, I discovered or maybe rediscovered.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the Christian story is this beautiful story of heaven and earth reunited.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've heard me say this countless times.

[SPEAKER_01]: The movement of the Christian story is not from earth to heaven.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's from heaven to earth.

[SPEAKER_01]: And God's redemptive plan is for all creation.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that includes our physical selves.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here at this way, I have one point this morning, one point.

[SPEAKER_01]: The gospel is not just good news for your soul.

[SPEAKER_01]: The gospel is good news for your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: to be made human is to be embodied in the good news for all humans, is not just good news for your soul.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's good news for your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to show us this morning, God's design sends distortion and Christ redemption.

[SPEAKER_01]: If there's a title to this sermon, it's that we are made embodied.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you have God's design for our embodied self, sends distortion of our embodied existence and then Christ's redemption of all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Genesis 2-7, the Terran Red Force,

[SPEAKER_01]: Formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living creature.

[SPEAKER_01]: Genesis 225 says this, and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

[SPEAKER_01]: A human being, a human being, is a body animated with the breath of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Think about what that means to be human is to be matter brought to life by eternal divine breath.

[SPEAKER_01]: John Kleinigs and author, he says that this way, the human body was made to bridge two realms.

[SPEAKER_01]: The invisible eternal realm of God and the visible temporal realm of his creation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me read that one more time.

[SPEAKER_01]: The human body was made to bridge two realms.

[SPEAKER_01]: that it's this intersection between these two beautiful things, the invisible eternal realm of God, and the visible temporal realm of His creation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Created as they were in God's image, all human bodies were meant to be holy, even as God is holy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thus human bodies do not just belong to this world, but also to the eternal world of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Our physical existence was made to be eternal.

[SPEAKER_01]: Think about the order that God made Adam in.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's the reverse of maybe how we'd expect it because when we think of a person, we think mostly of a soul.

[SPEAKER_01]: So what we'd expect to find is that as God's creating humanity, he creates what first, he creates the soul first, and he calls that soul Adam, and then he looks around in creation for a body to put that soul into.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the body is then just temporary housing for Adam, because a human is a soul that borrows a body and wears it like clothes until it's done with it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Listen again, then the Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground.

[SPEAKER_01]: That came first.

[SPEAKER_01]: and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't start with the solace, starts with the body.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he makes his hair, and he makes his face, and he determines his skin color, and what I shape he would have, and how tall he would be, he forms the man, and then breathed divine breath, and animates what he formed.

[SPEAKER_01]: The woman's made the same way.

[SPEAKER_01]: The flesh that God created, God so delighted in, He creates woman from Adam's side.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the point is, he starts with the body.

[SPEAKER_01]: He does not create a soul named Eve, and then ask Adam if he can borrow a rib.

[SPEAKER_01]: He fashions the body, and then breathes into Eve, the breath of life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here's how theologian Carl Truman says it.

[SPEAKER_01]: There is no eye behind or before the body.

[SPEAKER_01]: You did not pre-exist as a soul.

[SPEAKER_01]: There is no us that exist independently of our flesh, and that is then randomly assigned the bodies we have.

[SPEAKER_01]: Our bodies are an integral part of who we are.

[SPEAKER_01]: I do not occupy my body as I might occupy a house, space suit, deck chair at the beach, on the contrary.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is an integral part of me, inseparable from who I am.

[SPEAKER_01]: If I could say it this way, you are your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're more than a body.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some points in scripture, what you'll find is you'll find a distinction between the body and the soul.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus says, don't fear the one who can destroy the body, fear the one who can destroy the soul.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so he makes a distinction between the physical parts of us and then the immaterial parts of us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Other times, the soul is used to describe the whole person, both material and immaterial.

[SPEAKER_01]: In first Peter, when he talks about the salvation of our souls, the context is resurrection, so he's including our flesh in that.

[SPEAKER_01]: We were made.

[SPEAKER_01]: We were made to be a unified whole of divine breath and sacred flesh, physical and spiritual.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not enough to say you are your body, but your body is a divinely given part of your identity and it is inseparable from who you are.

[SPEAKER_01]: My daughter asked me this week, Dad, as you get older, do you think you will shrink?

[SPEAKER_01]: I said, honey, I already have started.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm shorter than I was.

[SPEAKER_01]: She used the right language though.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's asking about my body.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think you will shrink and calls that me?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because this is who I am.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is my body's who I am.

[SPEAKER_01]: My youngest daughter has this precious strip of freckles right at the top of her cheeks.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll tell her sometimes, Ella, you are your freckles.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're part of what makes you you.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are your blue eyes, you are your blonde hair, you are your laugh, because I want to know that her physical self is not something to reject.

[SPEAKER_01]: Her physical self is who she is.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a gift from God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your body is part of your given identity, who you are.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everything about you, it needs to be set.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your gender.

[SPEAKER_01]: is part of your given identity.

[SPEAKER_01]: Gender is not something that is psychologically determined, it's something that is physically received, a sign from God.

[SPEAKER_01]: God made male and female in his image.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a gift to be made a woman.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is a gift to be made a man.

[SPEAKER_01]: God designed all of that to be received with joy.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's part of who we are.

[SPEAKER_01]: So even though the way that we came into existence was different than the way God made out of an Eve, it's still true, the pattern holds

[SPEAKER_01]: And then there was some miraculous moment where divine breath gave you life and animated your physical self.

[SPEAKER_01]: And see this, right relationship to the body.

[SPEAKER_01]: When God wants to talk about how good his world is, he describes, when he wants to tell us that everything is right in the world that he made, the last verse before the temptation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Before Satan enters the story in Genesis 3, the last verse says it this way.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

[SPEAKER_01]: They can welcome the eyes of God and the eyes of others on their uncovered bodies as a shameless experience.

[SPEAKER_01]: God describes their spiritual condition as a physical reality to be unashamed like that means their whole person is in right relationship with God and others.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the Eden version of being completely comfortable in your own skin.

[SPEAKER_01]: sin's distortion.

[SPEAKER_01]: Genesis 3, 7, Satan tempts Adam and Eve, they disobey God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sowed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's an immediate consequence of sin.

[SPEAKER_01]: It affects the whole of life.

[SPEAKER_01]: and it separates body from soul.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jim Wilkin wrote a wonderful book on aging called Dust to Dust.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she pointed something out that was, that I just never put together before.

[SPEAKER_01]: She makes the point that aging is not the result of the fall.

[SPEAKER_01]: meaning God made time and he made us in time and so we were made to age.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here's what that looked like before the fall.

[SPEAKER_01]: She has a illustration that's super helpful.

[SPEAKER_01]: You have body and soul that are born together and united in maturation forever.

[SPEAKER_01]: As the body matures, so does the soul.

[SPEAKER_01]: As the material parts of us mature, so do the immaterial parts because we were made both body and soul to live forever.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll send the storts that.

[SPEAKER_01]: where we were made to grow and mature together now that's fractured and she has an image of aging post fall and what that looks like.

[SPEAKER_01]: Where you start body and soul together and then as we age, those two things start to go towards different destinations.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's maturity together to a point, and then at some point the body starts to decline, even while the soul can still mature.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jen says that this way, aging existed before sin entered the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: That means aging itself is not a penalty of sin.

[SPEAKER_01]: The penalty of sin on the human body is not that it ages, but that as it ages, it declines towards death.

[SPEAKER_01]: It suffers increasing physical and cognitive failure with each passing year on the downward slope of the curve.

[SPEAKER_01]: They became more able, mature-wise loving, joyful, peaceful, patient kind and so on, with every year that passed after the fall, people still have the capacity to develop spiritually and emotionally for all of life, but our bodies steadily decline toward death.

[SPEAKER_01]: Humans once formed from the dust, no with absolute certainty they will return to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Over the years,

[SPEAKER_01]: I have matured in my character, I promise.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not at the pace that I want to, but I am more patient, more kind, more thoughtful, more faithful.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, than I was at 17, my soul has matured.

[SPEAKER_01]: The immaterial parts of me, and 17-year-old Jayman would smoke me in a foot race.

[SPEAKER_01]: 17-year-old jaman was way more athletic.

[SPEAKER_01]: We would have one state of coach would have played it more.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a separation that's happening between my body and my soul as I age.

[SPEAKER_01]: I still have the capacity for emotional, spiritual maturity and growth and by God's grace I will for the rest of the time that God gives me.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the next 40 years of my life will be marked by the decline of my body.

[SPEAKER_01]: We all know people and have seen people who age, and as they age, we've watched them grow spiritually strong, and at the same time, we've watched them grow physically weak.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not how it was supposed to be.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sin distorted that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Body and soul are equally what makes us us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Body and soul were designed to mature together for the glory of God at the same pace without any separation.

[SPEAKER_01]: So in the preacher says, if you died tonight, if you're Christian, and the preacher says, if you died tonight, where would you go?

[SPEAKER_01]: You have to give two answers.

[SPEAKER_01]: One answer is right, my soul would go to be with Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: The other answer is, I will go wherever my body is, because my body is who I am.

[SPEAKER_01]: And those were never designed to be two answers.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sin separates.

[SPEAKER_01]: It separates us from God and separates us from one another, and it separates us from our self.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are no longer at one as body and soul that we were made to be.

[SPEAKER_01]: You hear that in this verse,

[SPEAKER_01]: The eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves loincloths.

[SPEAKER_01]: Naked and unshamed, fig leaves to hide what I'm now ashamed of.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to lean in to one way we experience this distortion as embodied people in a broken world.

[SPEAKER_01]: We experience it in a way that is defined by our culture.

[SPEAKER_01]: We experience it in a way that is different than other Christians

[SPEAKER_01]: we live in an image-obsessed culture that idealizes the body and idealizes the appearance.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a physical standard of what a body should look like and for most people that standard feels impossible.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's idolatry because the spirit behind much of it is not be as healthy as you can so you can serve your community.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's look as good as you can so that others admire you are attracted to you or a jealous of you.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's this ideal picture of what a man should look like and it's build and it's muscles and it's body fat percentage and it's physical abilities that go with all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I get ads online.

[SPEAKER_01]: The last one I saw was look like you're 30 and lift like you're 20.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, can you help me run like I'm 17?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the fastest I ever was.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's an ideal picture of what a woman should look like, waste size and form and skin.

[SPEAKER_01]: Salt post online the other day and the headline was, mom of four down to her pre-pregnancy weight.

[SPEAKER_01]: See how she did it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because in an image obsessed world, extra pounds from child-bearing is a problem to solve.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a way to talk about that as health and stewardship of the body?

[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't imagine most people encounter those kinds of things and think, oh, let me read that post for the glory of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're living in an image-obsessed world.

[SPEAKER_01]: The standard of beauty for most people is not inviting.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's haunting.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what that does is it makes us of people that care less about seeing change in our heart and care more about seeing change in the mirror.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what comes with that?

[SPEAKER_01]: And a culture that idolizes the body it produces people who despise their own bodies.

[SPEAKER_01]: A few moments ago when I said, you are your body, some of us don't like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't want that to be true.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because you're frustrated with your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some are chronically ill and your mind can't will your body to do what you want it to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: We feel like you're at war within yourself because of health problems, or mental illness, or something like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of us believe lies that we've been told about our body, things that were said about us, you know, going through middle school, or lies that we've been told that the culture is just quick to sell.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of us believe about our bodies that they're irredeemable because of sins that we've committed with our body.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of us believe our bodies are irredeemable because of sins committed against our body.

[SPEAKER_01]: And some of us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of you hate what you see in the mirror.

[SPEAKER_01]: You hate your face, you hate your skin, you hate the shape of your body, you live in this place of constantly comparing what you look like to what others look like, what you look like to what you used to look like and you're disappointed in what you see when you see you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Would you hear me?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do not despise what the Lord loves.

[SPEAKER_01]: do not despise what the Lord loves.

[SPEAKER_01]: The gospel is not just good news for the soul, it is good news for the body.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want you to see that this morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: First Corinthians 6, verse 13, this will feel like a change of subject.

1 Corinthians 6:13

[SPEAKER_00]: It is not.

[SPEAKER_01]: The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body.

[SPEAKER_01]: And God raised the Lord and will also raise a set by His power.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

[SPEAKER_01]: Shall I then take the members of Christ and make the members of a prostitute?

[SPEAKER_01]: Never.

[SPEAKER_01]: Or do you know?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you not know that He who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her, for as it is written?

[SPEAKER_01]: The two will become one flesh, but He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him, flee.

[SPEAKER_01]: sexual morality.

[SPEAKER_01]: Every other sin of person commits is outside the body that sexually immoral person sends against his own body.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God?

[SPEAKER_01]: You are not your own for you or pot with a price.

[SPEAKER_01]: Glorify God in your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: The context behind these verses, as you can probably tell, is scandalous and uncomfortable.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Christians in Corinth live in a culture that believed the body didn't matter at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what you did with it didn't matter at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that led to a lot of things.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that led to was a grievous sexual sin.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you had in this church, Christians who were saved out of pagan religion,

[SPEAKER_01]: who were still going to pagan temples and having sex with temple prostitutes and Paul writes to all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know what you would expect him to say in response to all that, but what he writes are some of the most beautiful truths about the body and all of scripture.

[SPEAKER_01]: We walked through this passage a few years ago and I taught on the Bible's sexual ethic.

[SPEAKER_01]: how we define sexual immorality as anything outside of God's design and God designed sex for marriage between a husband and a wife.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want more on that, we can help you find the sermon or if you just want to have a kind conversation about that, we would love to talk with you about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Where I want to focus on now.

[SPEAKER_01]: is the theology of the body in Christ that we see, because what Paul does not say, is he doesn't say flee sexual immorality and go find a spouse.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says flee sexual immorality because you already have Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: And because you have in Jesus truth about your body that is so much more valuable than how you're treating it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to lean in to the value, identity, and good news that he speaks about the body.

[SPEAKER_01]: Two things, good news for your body and the present and two good news for your body in the future.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

[SPEAKER_01]: Shall I then take the members of Christ and make the members of a prostitute never?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you not know that He who's joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her, if rather as it is written, the two will become one flesh, He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate how blunt this is because it forces us to pay attention.

[SPEAKER_01]: The theology behind this verse is called union with Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: When we become Christians,

[SPEAKER_01]: Our body by the spirit is united to Christ's body.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's why Paul says, when you go into the temple and engage in immorality, you take Christ with you there.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a whole side of this that is so sobering to think about and it's important.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everything we look at as those who've been united with Christ, everything we look at we look at with Christ's eyes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everything we touch, we do so with Christ's hands.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everything we say, we speak with His mouth.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't understand how it all works.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is theologically accurate, though, to say, if you would not do something with Christ in the room, then don't do it because Christ is always wherever you are, Christian.

[SPEAKER_01]: He has so united Himself to you in that way.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can find so much conviction there, because we have all done things with our bodies that we would not have done in the presence of Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: because we did not know that he was actually present.

[SPEAKER_01]: The other side of that, or along with that, it is good news for the body in the present, because it means your body has sacred purpose.

[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to discover meaning for your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is given to you in that you've been united with Christ and wherever you are, there Christ is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Look, we almost exclusively get message about our body that are entirely self-centered and individualistic, and this is different than that.

[SPEAKER_01]: If it's true, that you can take the body of Christ into the temple and commit sin.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is equally true that you can take the body of Christ into your home and do good.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can take the body of Christ into your classroom as a witness.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can take the body of Christ to your job to do honest work.

[SPEAKER_01]: because I don't have a me to be united with Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: What we're given here in Scripture is not a me-centered agenda for my body, but a Christ-centered view of my body.

[SPEAKER_01]: It means we're asking about our physical self, how do I honor Christ with this body that he has redeemed and united themselves to?

[SPEAKER_01]: How do I care for it?

[SPEAKER_01]: How do I care for it?

[SPEAKER_01]: Not to draw attention to it?

[SPEAKER_01]: You know,

[SPEAKER_01]: But how do I pursue health in a way that honors the body of Christ in how I rest, how I eat, how I move to whatever degree I'm able, we're all different.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some people despise their bodies so they worship fitness, some despise their bodies so they stop caring about their health.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

[SPEAKER_01]: So care for.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do not idolize, but care for what Christ has united himself to.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe one way to say it is, would you just ask what this Christ want?

[SPEAKER_01]: Wherever my body is, their Christ is, he's united himself to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: What does he want?

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't want me to raise my voice and unrighteous anger.

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't want me to use my strength to harm.

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't want me to hate what I see in the mirror.

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't want me to neglect what he's given to me as a gift.

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't want me to treat his body cheaply.

[SPEAKER_01]: He wants me to be like him and to know that my physical presence represents his physical presence in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: So your body

[SPEAKER_01]: has sacred Christ given purpose.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's good news right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: And good news right now, your body has blood bought value.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you not know that your body is a temple, the Holy Spirit, within you, whom you have from God, you are not your own for you were bought with a price?

[SPEAKER_01]: He writes this.

[SPEAKER_01]: to people who have just committed sin that made you uncomfortable when I read it out loud in church.

[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe what we expect is, okay, all of you who took your bodies to the pagan temple and engaged in scandalous behavior, you have to leave.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your body is irredeemable, or maybe something softer than that, but still harsh.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, you guys can't come to church for a month.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you can stay pure for a few weeks, and then you can come back, no.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says, you're not your own.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're bought with a price.

[SPEAKER_01]: He speaks good news over them.

[SPEAKER_01]: and he doesn't differentiate between those who committed the sin and those who didn't.

[SPEAKER_01]: But with the price, you know what that is?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's redemption language.

[SPEAKER_01]: Throughout Paul's writing, he talks about this first century economic practice of redemption, where if somebody was a slave and you were a family member, you were a loved one or you were a friend and you wanted to set them free from slavery, then you could purchase their freedom.

[SPEAKER_01]: from your own pocket and then you could redeem them and set them free by becoming their new master and he uses that as a metaphor for what Christ has done for us, what Christ has done for you and Paul draws our attention to what that cost, what it costs to redeem you, including your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ephesians 17, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our sins according to the riches of his grace, your embodied savior offered his body for yours.

[SPEAKER_01]: sinless Jesus, the divine breath, animated sacred flesh, and then shed his own blood as the price of our redemption.

[SPEAKER_01]: It means goodness.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are worth now.

[SPEAKER_01]: You, your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are worth now.

[SPEAKER_01]: What Christ was willing to pay, and what He was willing to pay was His own priceless life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Paul's not just applying that to your soul,

[SPEAKER_01]: redeeming the body was always part of God's plan.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's why God Himself took on a body.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here's a quote from Sam Albury, it'll be on the screen behind me.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's long, but it's worth our time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus' incarnation is the highest compliment that human body has ever been paid.

[SPEAKER_01]: God not only thought our body's up and enjoyed putting several billion of them together, he made one for himself and not just for the Christmas season, his body was for life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And for far more than that, after his death, he was raised bodily, after his resurrection, he returned to his father in heaven also bodily.

[SPEAKER_01]: When he ascended into heaven, he didn't ditch his humanity like a space shuttle ditches its booster rockets.

[SPEAKER_01]: Becoming human at Christmas was not meant to be reversible.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was permanent.

[SPEAKER_01]: There is now a human body sitting at the right hand of God, the father at the very center of heaven.

[SPEAKER_01]: That his body matters, is proof that mine and yours do too.

[SPEAKER_01]: He became what he valued enough to redeem.

[SPEAKER_01]: He became what he valued enough to redeem.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then he laid down his body that yours might be a mate hole.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is good news right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here at this way, he has covered all your shame.

[SPEAKER_01]: What the fig leaves in Genesis 3 could not do for Adam and Eve.

[SPEAKER_01]: What all of our attempts to cover and view of ourselves could not do Christ can and has covered our shame with His precious blood.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are not waiting for a value verdict on your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: You do not have to wonder if anyone loves that part of you.

[SPEAKER_01]: You do not have to look at how many likes your picture gets online.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're not waiting for your mind to work right.

[SPEAKER_01]: You will not earn it only after you lose the weight.

[SPEAKER_01]: You do not have to do all the cosmetic tricks.

[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to be the strongest or the fastest or the best.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're not waiting for the right person to tell you that you are attractive.

[SPEAKER_01]: The verdict on your life including your body is found in the precious blood of Jesus in the kind heart of your Heavenly Father.

[SPEAKER_01]: He loves you.

[SPEAKER_01]: He loves all of you.

[SPEAKER_01]: He loves your face, and he loves your skin.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he loves every single part of you that he fearfully and wonderfully made do not despise what the Lord loves.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've been bought with a price.

[SPEAKER_01]: The gospel is good news in the present for your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: The gospel is good news in the future for your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 14,

[SPEAKER_01]: God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus' resurrection was not a spirit only event.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was physical.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was raised to life.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was Himself.

[SPEAKER_01]: They saw Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: They knew Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: They touched Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you think about the image we saw on the screen, soul and body are separated at death.

[SPEAKER_01]: What sin separates.

[SPEAKER_01]: Resurrection reunites for all of eternity.

[SPEAKER_01]: The body Jesus took on in his incarnation.

[SPEAKER_01]: That same body was reanimated with divine breath and glorified in his resurrection.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Jesus is what Scripture calls the first fruits for all Christians.

[SPEAKER_01]: His resurrection is the template for your resurrection and the future Christian.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you died today,

[SPEAKER_01]: Your soul would go to be with Jesus in heaven.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your body would go wherever your family decided.

[SPEAKER_01]: And your body would decay while your soul waited in heaven.

[SPEAKER_01]: And one day, one glorious day, Jesus will return.

[SPEAKER_01]: And your body will again be animated with divine breath.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your soul and body reunited in resurrection.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know how it works, but I know the body that walked out of the tomb was Jesus's body glorified.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the body that Christ will raise when he returns will be your body glorified.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it means your body will never die again.

[SPEAKER_01]: It cannot get hurt anymore.

[SPEAKER_01]: It'll never get sick.

[SPEAKER_01]: You'll never catch a cold.

[SPEAKER_01]: It'll never ache.

[SPEAKER_01]: You'll never lose feeling in your limbs.

[SPEAKER_01]: You'll never lose your memory.

[SPEAKER_01]: You'll never get depressed.

[SPEAKER_01]: You'll never have a panic attack.

[SPEAKER_01]: And eyes that lost sight as they age will see the face of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: And mouths that were nonverbal.

[SPEAKER_01]: All of life will sing praises for Jesus to all eternity.

[SPEAKER_01]: And legs that from birth never had this strength to run.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll sprint in Jesus' name.

[SPEAKER_01]: The gospel is good news for your soul, and the gospel is good news for your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: Father, we love you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we need you.

[SPEAKER_01]: My prayer, oh God, in all of these sermons in this series would just be,

[SPEAKER_01]: that Jesus that you had just helped us recover what it means to be human.

[SPEAKER_01]: You had helped us recover what it means.

[SPEAKER_01]: That relationship with you makes us more and more of what we were always meant to be.

[SPEAKER_01]: goodness God, some of us need to repent for how obsessed we are with our appearance.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of us need to repent for how careless we have and can be with the physical gift that you have given us in our physical self.

[SPEAKER_01]: I imagine that underneath that, for many, we need to learn to not despise what you love, to not despise what you love.

[SPEAKER_01]: Help us to know what it means to be bought with a price.

[SPEAKER_01]: to not leave church, having checked the religious box, but to walk out into your world believing, we are your very present, that our bodies are somehow some mysterious, glorious way, members of your own very body.