Who Are We?

Prayers

Hurricane

Weisens

Laura

Oct 16

Oct 22 - 23 (meal/sylvestries)

Have you ever thought about the body. Your body. The physical body.

Sometimes it is just amazing to think about isn’t it?

Laid end to end, an adult’s blood vessels could circle Earth’s equator four times!

Information zooms along nerves at about 400kmph! 250mph

The human heart beats more than three billion times in an average lifespan

If a human being’s DNA were uncoiled, it would stretch 10 billion miles, from Earth to Pluto and back.

You get a new top layer of skin (epidermis) every 30 days.

The average person breathes about 20,000 times a day.

The heart pumps about 2,500 gallons of blood every day.

I think about running…balance, speed, breathing, heartrate…all working together to get me from point A to B.

Eyesight…hearing…taste…touch…smell...

The brain…wow the immense capacity for information storage and that there’s parts of the brain that just keep our body moving and breathing and more …without us thinking about it (breathing).

A piece of brain tissue the size of a grain of sand contains 100,000 neurons and 1 billion synapses, all communicating with one another.

The body is simply amazing.

Genesis 1:27 CSB

27 So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female.

When we read further we find that in chapter 2 of Genesis, it is described for us how God formed man’s body from the dust of the earth, female’s body from the rib of the man. And into each body…the breath of life from God.

Both body and spirit. Material and spiritual.

Designed for life. Different than God’s other creations and creatures…but still creatures none the less.

The last few weeks we talked about how God created a day of rest for He and His creatures. We also talked about how God created us as people, humans, not other gods. We’re limited. But we also came to the conclusion that God created us like this…and He said that it was very good. So we trust that we are good in our limits…and that we were created to enjoy good work that God gives us, and that we were created to enjoy resting with Him, enjoying His creation.

No worry, no regrets. Peace with God. Peace with each other. Peace with all of God’s creation around us.

And all of it was called Good by God himself.

Now, for today’s message, some of you will already be where I’m going. To be honest…in my day to day experiences I struggle with what we’re going to talk about. For some of you, if you’re like me, today might be very helpful to many facets of your Christian discipleship…how you see yourself and how you see others…and how you see God.

Love God…Love others as you love yourself.

The body.

Now the idea that God’s original design, purpose with respect to the human body has been shaken up lately. Some have a lot of trouble with this idea…I would venture to say that many who are having a lot of trouble might not have a firm foundation when it comes to God as creator and redeemer.

The sin nature is real isn’t it.

We see this account of creation…God created humanity, body and soul, and then He blessed it, gave it purpose and meaning (recreate yourselves!…spread my glory (which is in you) all around the planet.

Then humanity sinned…and the perfect created order of everything became less than perfect.

Even today when we think about our body…when we get a cut, or when we have cold or a disease, or when we experience loss or grief, down deep we know that these things shouldn’t be…that our body isn’t perfect.

And we know…as believers that this is because we’ve lost what we were originally created with.

But does that mean that everything is bad and horrible and ....have you ever thought about this? The body is bad now. Can’t wait to get rid of this horrible thing!

What if there’s a different idea that Jesus gives us…about everything we were created with? Body and soul

What if God wants us to love everything about how we were created…but to be honest about the idea that His creation was corrupted…meaning…the goodness is still there…it’s just in need of redemption. Redeemed…brought back to originality.

Take God out of the picture completely…people in general want to progress or move forward…thinking that we can become better. Guess what…God’s real and His son is redeeming all things back to Himself. He’s recreating … bringing us back to God.

We can’t do this on our own.

Okay…so back to the idea of Who We Are.

Body and Soul.

There was a theologian from the 2nd Century who struggle with this…just like some of us do. He struggled with the body…the material.

His name was Marcion.

He struggled with the OT in general…and thought that the body was not only sin affected, but sin destroyed. Meaning…He thought it was horrible.

Now he had a problem.

Let me introduce you to His problem through a couple of passages. Many of you will be familiar with these passages.

Genesis 1:1 CSB

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

We know that one…and pretty much you know the ones following that too. The days of GOOD creation including humanity…body and soul.

Now we have this passage...

John 1:1–5 CSB

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.

Now we’ll pass over a few of the next verses to get to the one where Marcion would begin to have trouble.

John 1:14 (CSB)

14 The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Paul writes about this more as when he wrote to the church in Philippi. He said that Jesus, who was in very nature, God, made himself nothing…taking on the very nature of a servant (human)…made in human likeness…like mankind.

You see, Marcion struggled with the human body. To him, the body needed to be done away with…so when it came to Jesus, he had a problem…because God’s Word says that Jesus, came in human form…with purpose and meaning.

He had to do some gymnastics with this one because…God’s word says...

Jesus was born.

He was a boy.

He grew and matured.

He became a man.

He walked and talked.

He became weary and needed rest.

He ate…and slept.

He bleed, was in pain, and died…according to scripture.

For him…Jesus coming into the world as human was a big problem to his idea that the body is beyond goodness and redemption.

There was a guy who thought differently who lived and thought and taught after Marcion had died. His name was Tertullian.

He said, wait a minute. God created us good! Everything about us. To Him we’re just corrupted…but redeemable…fixable.

He focused a lot on Jesus’ birth. Ever think about this? Jesus was born…formed in Mary’s womb. Mary…Jesus got all of His humanness from his mom…Mary. God from God…human form from Mary.

He was born. Needed to be wrapped up in swaddling clothes. Needed fed by his mom. Diaper changes. Burped. Bumps. Bruises.

It seems as though Jesus, the creator, was embracing what He created. Entering into it.

As John wrote…to live among His people.

Let me take a second here before we move forward. If we get this right, I think that we look at ourselves differently. I think we look at God’s goodness differently. And I think we look at others differently.

I think that we look at the words of Jesus…that our highest commandment is to Love God with everything we have…and to love others as we love ourselves…I think we look at that differently.

And I think we understand that God’s creation is good…but is corrupted by sin…but not destroyed.

Being human is to be in an embodied state…, and that has always been a good, not a bad, thing.

Isn’t it interesting that in the beginning the only thing that is declared not good, is when man is by himself…right before God created woman. We were made to be with God and with each other.

So into this creation, that is good but corrupted comes Jesus. In all of our humanity.

It doesn’t seem that He’s afraid of it does it? And He didn’t come to destroy it, He came to enter it, to love it, to heal it.

God puts a high value on our humanness, on our limits that He created us with. In fact he puts a high value on each of us…every part of us. All that we were created with.

Some people…and even myself have said…with good intentions but not really focusing on where it goes…we’ve sometimes said…God can’t be near sin. That’s the picture of the separation in the garden…how we sometimes see it. Well then we get the idea that we’re so bad…God can’t be near us…because we’ve sinned.

But that’s not really truth. The truth is sin can’t be near God. We have a hard time sometimes going to God…we feel like we can’t. We feel like we’re too bad. We’ve heard some say…maybe you’ve even said it yourself…the roof would cave in if I went to church.

As though somehow, our sin, everything about us, our brokeness is more powerful than God.

That doesn’t work does it. God is God. And He’s come to us. Chasing us…becoming like us…like His creation. To show us what can be, to be near us, to heal us.

I love this quote from St. Ephrem “That unreachable power came down and put on limbs that could be touched so that the needy could approach Him and, embracing His humanity, become aware of His divinity.”

Marcion said…we need to get rid of this body. It’s horrible.

Jesus put on this body, considers it good. Just corrupted. But not to be thrown out…but to be healed and …in His words from Revelation…to be recreated from the inside out.

Is there a way to love ourselves differently now…Is there a way to love our neighbors differently.

Can we love ourselves and our neighbors as Jesus loved us....in all of our creatureliness?

Tertullian said this...”He restores our flesh so that it is free from trouble; he cleanses it when leprous, gives sight to it when blind, heals it when paralyzed, purifies it when it is demon-possessed, raises it when it has died. Does he then blush to be born in it?”

God’s concern is not to erase or destroy our humanity, but to renew it. Human flourishing comes not in the absence of our creaturely limits but in healthy wholeness of them.

Jesus said..as recorded by John, “The enemy comes to steal and destroy, I’ve come to give them full life.”

I would tend to believe what Jesus said....

Sounds like full life includes this body…redeemed and in the process of being recreated…and forgiven…cleaned and ready to live forever Amen?!

Jesus gave us a picture of this when He rose from the grave....body and spirit…combined…together…

Here’s where we struggle. In the sin nature…we struggle with sickness. We struggle with addictions…that are intertwined with our body. We struggle with the stress and what that does to our body. We struggle with false ideas that reside in our brain. We struggle with hungers and fascinations that are often not from God but from the enemy…and all of these things either directly affect or come from our body.

So much so that sometimes we come to a point where we hate this life…forgetting that Jesus came in bodily form…showing us that restoration is possible through Him. Redemption is possible through Him.

Redemption to both body and soul.

Who are we?

We are creatures…who have an incredible creator.

We are creatures…also completely affected by sin...

but we are still loved…by God who has sent His son to redeem and recreate us.

Have you ever thought about how much…and in our culture right now we see this a lot....how many people are searching for identity…changing identity…re-imagining what relationships might be worthwhile…but in the end…we find ourselves and others really fighting against God’s original purpose and meaning for us?

We see a world like that don’t we?

What about this message would be helpful. I tend to think that if people, us included, might see that God created us good…and that with His spirit’s help when we yield to His purposes and His boundaries for life…that we’ll experience fullness that many are searching for …body and soul.

Paul writes this about our body. He is encouraging people in the church in Corinth to stop immoral behaviors. With that he reminds his readers that the body…their bodies have been chosen by God to be the temple or the “place of habitation” of the Holy Spirit. God chooses to live in this body. It is a temple for God...

Paul later writes that someday…we were born in the likeness of earthly man (adam and eve), we will also bear the likeness of the man from Heaven. Redeemed and recreated by Jesus himself.

Paul writes to the church in Corinth …1 Corinthians 15 that the body that is sown…meaning the body that has died is perishable…but it will be raised imperishable.

It dies as a natural body…but raised as a spiritual body.

Paul continues to say that one day this perishable and corruptable will be covered up by imperishable…immortal. Like clothing on the body…we will be changed.

Sin and death no longer have a hold on us.

We were made to live, body and soul, with God, with each other, all while enjoying all of creation…in a body and with a spirit. We can’t separate the two. God’s given us all of our senses, a mind, a soul, even a spirit to enjoy Him, each other, and all of creation.

And when sin entered in, the Father made a plan to fix us and recreate us.

Isn’t it interesting that Paul describes the church family as a body? A body where we are in a very real way…connected to each other and connected to Christ.

We need the touch of each other…the touch of Christ. We need to hear and feel and sense creation. These are all parts of the fullness of life.

Of course, in this sin world, there are (as we tell little children) appropriate touches and innappropriate touches right?....sin nature. It’s here. We need forgiven. And we know that bodies can be used and abused or be in need…we can use and abuse our own body and others can use or abuse us....model from Canada’s experience in NY.

Human body standards????? The enemy has hooks in us!

But because sin is here doesn’t mean that sin throws out the original intent…that our bodies…our souls were created together and declared Good.

“We cannot disentangle our flesh from our souls, or our minds from our body, and attempting to separate them denies the reality of our wholeness as God created us. It denies our finitude…our finiteness…our limits which were created good.

Our bodies, with all their needs and dependencies, were made good. And part of the intrinsic good of our bodies is that they are an ever-present reminder of our creaturely needs: to be human is to be dependent on the Creator Lord, dependent on other human creatures who provide their presence and love, and dependent on the earth, which provides for our physical needs, from oxygen to lettuce, from shade to springs of water.”

We were made for Him our creator. We were made for each other. And all of the rest of creation was made for us as well.

Jesus is renewing all of this.

To be renewed we need to really humble ourselves before Him. Take on His plan for our lives…not what we think is best for us. Have relationships that He thinks is best for us. Not the ones we think will make us happy or whole. We need to lay before him our sins…our deficiencies…our weaknesses…so that he can take them and become our strength.

In the end…what we’ve really done is we’ve humbled ourselves in a way to simply say, Jesus, I’m in need of a recreation. And your way will be best. Amen?