Give Your Body To God

In this series we have talked about the heart (the place of our will), we have talked about the mind (our thoughts and emotions). But perhaps the dimension of the self that most confounds our culture is the body.

We don’t know what to do with the body.

The dominant Western culture, the body is our main pursuit and our biggest problem.

Sexualize practically everything

High rates of Abortion

Eating disorders

Racial discrimination

Youth worship

Fear, shame, disgust and even anger directed towards disability, aging, and dying. (the body’s failure is the ultimate insult from which there is no recovery).

What’s worse is that the church has no real answers.

Body neglect: This body is not me.

Our own brand of body fixing: twisted idea that God’s healing power flows at the whim of our desire to be comfortable.

And while we have a nice language around it, too many of us live in breathless terror of our own death and hopeless mourning as it relates to falling asleep of those we love.

We have lost a rational, practical theology of the body.

Practical Theology

Thinking the way God thinks about it

Acting based on those thoughts

And without that, it is hard to live a victorious spiritual life.

The body lies right at the center of the spiritual life.

All the spiritual stuff we talked about last week (thoughts and emotions) play over our bodies

Hair on your neck stands up when you’re alarmed.

Palms sweat when you’re nervous.

The pit in your stomach when you’re afraid.

The body will be our primary ally in or the primary barrier to living the life Christ calls us to.

Life in the spirit is profoundly incarnational…so very bodily.

Matthew 6:24–33

24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

This is a fairly popular text (in the Sermon on the Mount),

but it is not usually considered to be a passage about the body

usually we say it is about money and/or anxiety).

Embedded in this teaching about material wealth is practical theology about the body

The body is our connection to the material world

All matter (our bodies included) is potential energy.

To access, possess, master, and enjoy that energy is the goal of Mammon.

Liberate the energy in wood by burning it.

Liberate the energy in a hamburger by eating it (enjoyment and protein)

I can only liberate and use the energy in other physical objects by using my own body.

My body is the only body whose energy is directly accessible for my own use and satisfaction.

This competition between Mammon and God to master the soul plays out in the body.

Sermon Topic: A Jubilee For The Body

PRAYER

Mammon Centers The Body

Understand Mammon

A a Greek transliteration of an Aramaic term māmônā (מָמוֹנָא), which derives a Hebrew root “āman” meaning "to be firm, reliable, trustworthy"

The system of security that competes directly with trust in God's provision.

It is not just “money”, but the learned strategies for survival and success completely rooted in this material world.

The Mind controlled by Mammon is constantly thinking about the body.

What will eat and drink?

What will I ware?

How can I get the most out of this physical world?

The body is more than matter!

Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Reject the lie that your body is only physical matter.

There is a huge difference between the homan body and a zebra body

Different origin (formed vs called)

DIfferent future (Resurrection)

2 John 7: Many deceivers have gone out into the world; they do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.

Mammon deprives the body of the spiritual resources meant to sustain its life and functioning.

We must learn to take these words seriously, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”.

The body is a part of the spiritual mystery and the miracle of God’s creation.

Mammon is focused on the body the same way a pimp is focused on a prostitute.

It targets the body and draws the body in with promises of prestige and pleasure.

It uses the body for its own ends.

It uses mental, emotional, and sometimes physical abuse to keep the body in bondage.

Jesus Centers The Kingdom

The true gospel does not enter the competition with a message of, “God will make you bigger, better, faster version of yourself”

That is a false gospel. Don’t call it a “Prosperity Gospel”, there is no need to impugn the idea of prosperity. IT IS JUST A LYING GOSPEL

Bigger house

More money

More power

And if you learn to pray for healing, you won’t ever die!

Jesus’s message is:

Take no thought for your life…

Whoever tries to save his life will lose it…

If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.

The true gospel message says

You cannot measure the extent of a life in how many days a person spent breathing.

And you cannot measure how useful your body has been by the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the things you acquire, or the things you accomplish in the body.

There is a promise, but you can’t let the promise short circuit the process

If only we could read scripture with fresh eyes:

Abraham

Esther

The Hebrew Boys

The disciples

Most prayers for healing are in service to Mammon and not God.

You have not because you ask not, and when you ask you ask amiss to spend it on your own pleasure.

I want to be healed, but it has nothing to do with my purpose or God’s kingdom.

I just don’t like being uncomfortable.

And I don’t ever want to leave this body (even if means seeing you face-to-face)

The gospel is not a mechanism for achieving your Mammon induced aspirations

The gospel is releasing of whatever hope we have in this life to Christ and then freely receiving all He has for us in this world and eternal life in the age to come.

The Gospel Redeems The Body

“Seek” = try by various exertions to obtain something

“Not doing stuff” IS STILL BODY FOCUS

How do I begin to access the energies of my body in pursuit of the Kingdom.

Our bodies are hardwired to respond to Mammon

They must be reprogrammed to respond to God

1 Co 9:24–27: 24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control

“Spiritual Disciplines”

Prayer

Fasting

Fellowship

Silence

Scripture

Science confirms this reality of scripture.

It is easier for us to habitually respond with anger, anxiety, or greed, selfishness. And every time we do, we are literally carving deeper grooves in our brain that make those responses more automatic.

But here's the remarkable thing: when we engage in godly practices with our bodies - verbal prayer, intentional breathing, fasting, silence, Scripture meditation - we are actually rewiring our neural networks.

Research shows that these practices strengthen areas of the brain associated with emotional regulation, empathy, and focused attention, while reducing activity in regions linked to anxiety, reactive anger, and compulsive behavior. The old pathways of sin don't disappear overnight, but they gradually lose their dominance as new, healthier patterns take precedence.

It brings fresh meaning to Romans 12:1

Reasonable = genuine, authentic, essential (spiritual)

Because at the end of the day, all you really have to offer is your body.

It is the only object you have direct access to.

It is the only potential energy you can directly offer.

Your Body Will Either Be a Slave to Mammon or a Sacrifice to God.

Beloved, your body is created for spiritual life in the kingdom of God

To be honored in that context.

To be cared for in that context

One day to be glorified in that context

But when it is driven out of that position and made to be the focus of all of life; The body will destroy itself and ruin the soul.

It is time to recognize our bodies as incredible gifts meant to be used to bring glory to God.

I can’t stand here and guarantee you that you’re going to lose weight, get healed, get a new house…none of that.

But, I can guarantee you this: if your primary strategy for a good life is the pleasure and preservation of your body, you are under that influence of Mammon and it is cutting off the flow of grace to and through your body.

But if you begin to make your primary strategy for a good life the presentation of your body to God for His purpose, you will be in position to receive from the Lord every good thing He has for you in this life, and as bonus to true reward which is eternal fellowship with Him in the life that is to come.

Much more to say about the presentation of the body

but a regular presentation of the body in prayer is a great place to start.

Model prayer of releasing the body to God.