"A Body Worth Dying For"

Introduction

Fill in the blank for me… and say it out loud. “Everybody has a body! My body just happens to be _______________ .

It’s kinda funny what we come up with right off hand when asked to consider “our bodies” or “the body” in general. “Body talk” is actually at it’s height in this generation. Some common terms and phrases I have heard concerning the body are:

“It’s my body!”

“Everybody is somebody!”

“OH, my aching body!”

“Weight lifting?? In this body?! Oh, I think not!”

“I’m not into body sculpting. I’m more into body rolling.”

The body - to me - seems to be either the zenith of human purpose; how do we bring the body pleasure, ease, and ecstacy. Or it’s the bane of our human existence and we tend to speak about more life this: ‘grandma’s no longer a prisoner away from home in that body’ or ‘I can’t do the physical things you do; not in this ‘ol body’… The prevailing attitude in those examples is that we’ve not to fear for one day, we will be rid of the hindrances and sins or the impact of sin on this flesh.

We need a rehashing of what the body is for in this life… especially as members of the Body of Christ! The question we should be asking is:

“What do the Scriptures teach about “The Body”. Why is the body a big deal?

This morning, I want to journey through a few passages that give us an overarching theology of the body through the lens of holy scripture.

Let’s remember what we have already established in the previous two Sunday’s of study on Healthy Living.

To involved the congregation in the review:

Again, you fill in the blanks for me… if we want to truly live healthy, biblically, we must first begin with this: ____Hear______ O ____Israel_______, the ___Lord______ ___our_____ __God____. The Lord is __one___.

Be sure they get it: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one!

We must FIRST hear The LORD and the LORD alone!

He DOES IN FACT speak CLEARLY to this issue and gives us the foundation for how we are to understand the body and how to treat the body.

Second, we spoke last week in terms of the Body of Christ and we discovered that not every part of the body can do the same things that every other part can do. Hands can accomplish different tasks than legs, eyes differentiate sights while ears decipher sounds; the tongue tastes flavors, and the nose notes aromas. Each part of the body is distinct, yet, they are also dependent upon one another.

The Body of Christ is a frequent New Testament metaphor and one of the primary references when ‘body language’ is mentioned. It references all the people making up the church and their specific skills and gifts. How those particular assets of each believer work IN UNITY is what encourages individuals members of the body and witnesses to the unbelieving world.

Transition to the first passage and first consideration of the body?

The Body from the Beginning

We can see that the body is a remarkable gift from the beginning...

Let’s consider Genesis 1:26–28

Genesis 1:26–28 ESV

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 2:7–9 ESV

7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

From it’s inception, the body

Is created!

Man and woman! Distinct and complimentary one to another.

It was designed...

A physicality was given from day one

Vocational expectation - “have dominion”.

Mankind is both matter and spirit.

Formed from the dust of the earth...

Then give animate nature as God breathed life into Adam.

Before there was the Fall… there was a rising from the dirt! Life was not separate, it was ONE… just like the Maker himself, we were made uniquely WHOLE!

2. The Body “in the middle”

“Body language” is the language of continued embodiment in the OT. It’s understood more in terms of a “return to the body” after passing from this life. We see Enoch walk with God in Genesis 5:24; Elijah taken in a whirlwind and Job recognizing that he would go and see God.

Representations of life ending and a return to life IN A BODY are evidenced in such cases

Others include:

1. The widow’s son in Zaraphath (1 Kgs 17:17-22)

2. The Shunamite’s son (2 Kgs4:18-37)

3. The man throw into Elisha’s grave (2 Kgs 13:20).

Each of those accounts show us that a return to life included the body!

The Psalms add to the “body language”.

Prayer

Praise

Pleas

Supplication

Adoration

Exultation

Each one of these verbal responses to God are combined with bodily worship. And the attitude of the body language is good!

The Body of Christ

Now… the transition from the OT use of “body language” and the created goodness of the body… to Christ himself coming in THE BODY!

If God made mankind in his image and likeness… if the body was created good and pleasing to the Lord, if the imagery and presumption of OT examples and psalms anticipated resurrection and reunion with a body… what does it say that Christ, our Savior, came into the world in the flesh?

John 1:14 (ESV)

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The agent of mankind’s salvation did not come in the form of a spirit. It was not in the form of a spirit. It was not a provoking philosophical thought. It wasn’t something intangible… Mankind’s salvation was a coming into our condition. It was a putting on of our nature and likeness… it was in the flesh!

It is significant that the culmination of redemptive history is wrapped in swaddling cloths, could coo and cry, was able to be injured and age; the Savior of man was as feeble as a child yet never lost the power that owed Him every human’s absolute fealty. Just as Israel was to hear the Word of the Lord, that the Lord is God, the Lord is ONE...

So Jesus, came as a man. He, the Word, took on flesh! And he dwelt among us!

Yes, “And the Word became flesh”, is the hinge upon which our salvation swings.

Jesus became flesh!

He chose to take on the nature and likeness of that which refused to recognize him as its Maker!

And the Word became flesh…

“Becoming” is difficult to fully conceptualize. In one sense, there’s fitting language like growth. One is born as an infant and through the stages of maturation “becomes” a child, young adult, adult, and elder… to “become” is suitably explained in terms of growth. However, when The Word became flesh, it is The Word, existing outside of time and space, unbound from maturation, decay, or time’s diss-assembling effects… that’s what’s spellbinding about The Word becoming flesh… He who holds all things together suspended himself into the confines of time and growth, distress and delight so that he could dwell among his people!

The “body language” of John could read in such a manner as this, “Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one… and in the THE FLESH, THAT ONE has COME! In Exodus, 10-11 chapters DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY give directions for constructing the tabernacle so that Yahweh had a dwelling place; and a way to be near His people. But, in the person of Christ, God HIMSELF said, no further instructions are needed… stop construction on my dwelling construct my dwelling, I’ll be dwelling among you, with you, as one OF YOU!

AND THE WORD BECOME FLESH...

We were created with a body. That body was (and remains!) GOOD! Sure, it is THROUGH the body that sins of all shapes and sizes develop. BUT, it is equally THROUGH a body that the reconciliation between God and mankind is made possible!

Why then is it is big deal that we LIVE WITH A BODY?! Because the precedent has been set, EVERYTHING we do FOR CHRIST and/or IN CHRIST is done IN THE BODY!

Too often, we have supplanted the reality that the worship of God the Father and the Son and the Spirit is done in an EMBODIED way! That goes both for the WORSHIP of the congregation within this sanctuary as well as the WORSHIP that takes place in your places of work as you live and move and have your being in this world.

God molded us, breathed on us, planted an entire history of remembrance that we would bear the burdened of being separated from this body, but HE THEN CAME in a body, suffered as we did in that body, died in that body and was then raised to new life… IN THAT BODY!

You and I have been given bodies! They are gifts… not prisons!

I’m convinced that we know much better than we often let on about how to use the entirety of our bodies in the act of worship!

Let’s look at a non-worship act...

THIS GUY!

You would have a hard time convincing me that HE is not FULLY IMMERSED IN this moment: His body, his posture, his attire, his disposition, he is in that moment - and his body and brain are totally on the same page.

Too often, for us as followers of Christ, we allow our worship to exclude our bodies for fear that they might offend the Father rather than remembering that HE GAVE US THESE BODIES so that we might PRAISE THE SON and LIVE IN THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT!

Mega Church Worshipers...

My goal in showing that is to simply make this point - at least their bodies are involved. At least they aren’t saying “Lord, you can have all of me” but then they’re only offering a brain of praise.

There’s actually a bit of mystery and wonder when I get to play the drums. You see, in that moment, I don’t have to “wonder” ‘What am I going to do with my body?!” Instead, the wonder of the moment is that MY ENTIRE BODY is involved, immersed, and in-tune with giving Christ WORSHIP! It’s not worship by excluding my body, it’s worship through the inclusion of my body. It’s a recognition that THE BODY is HIS GIFT not HIS accidental IMPEDIMENT.

The Scriptures offer us an overwhelming degree of support that God made these bodies For His Glory and Our Good. And, yes, they are troubled… at times they’re downright BROKEN. It’s completely true that they can land in sin, but they weren’t made to only sin. Our bodies resonate as people who are saved by Jesus Christ to carry out the same message of salvation that came IN Jesus Christ.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…

The entrance into eternity (the final section of the message)...

Christ came IN A BODY, he died and was buried, and on the third day, he rose to new life! If being embodied was something that was inherently bad, then why does the resurrection RETURN US TO OUR BODIES?!

Family in Christ, it is precisely the resurrection of our bodies that calls us to a stewardship of those bodies NOW!

Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 4:8

1 Timothy 4:8 ESV

8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

This is a comparison of similarities… not of contrasts. BOTH are valuable! Both physical AND spiritual disciplines!

Adults, the time you give by having your bodies ENTERED into the occasions of family and community worship will drive your children’s senses of the priority that honoring God with your bodies necessitates.

Teenagers, you are at the peak of your physical prowess, if you have - in that prowess - made mistakes with your body - don’t demonize it! Revolutionize it IN CHRIST! He took the nails of the Cross IN HIS BODY THROUGH HIS HANDS AND FEET so that he would bear the sins that you and I have committed and breathe new life into our very bones!

To the elderly… I fully recognize that I am not yet where you are in body… but, please, do the entire body of Christ that worships with Simpson Creek the greatest exemplary gesture, and with whatever strength Christ has given you IN BODY… and recognize through use of that body, while He’s given me a temple to worship him in - I’M IN! Might’n my body not be divorced from my mouth or my mind when I’m surrendering my all to him!

Church, since God made the body for His glory, since the Scriptures have spoken throughout time that the body may die but it will be made one again, since Christ himself came INCARNATE, IN BODY, to purchase our lives for the sins we’d committed, and since… praise God… He will dwell BODILY with his people AGAIN… face-to-face… let us together commit ourselves to this remembrance and our participation in worship of the one who will return these bodies to a glorified, imperishable, and forever present state of joy and worship of HIM!

Revelation 21:3 (ESV)

3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.