Luke - Chapters 4, 5, and 12

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Limit #2: Your Body

Attention Getter: Manic Monday by The Bangles 1986
Have to catch an early train, got to be to work by nine And if I had an airplane, I still couldn't make it on time 'Cause it takes me so long just to figure out what I'm gonna wear Blame it on the train, but the boss is already there It's just another manic Monday (Ooh-oh) I wish it were Sunday (Ooh-oh) 'Cause that's my fun day (Ooh-oh) My I don't have to run day (Ooh) It's just another manic Monday
Comer, “No matter how much we see, do, buy, sell, eat, drink, experience, visit, etc., we always want more. Tragically, we continue to chase after our own desires ad infinitum.
The result? A chronic state of restlessness or, worse, angst, anger, anxiety, disillusionment, depression—all of which lead to a life of hurry, a life of busyness, overload, shopping, materialism, careerism, a life of more…which in turn makes us even more restless.
Advertising is literally an attempt to monetize our restlessness.
Social media takes this problem to a whole new level as our friends and family, all of whom curate the best moments of their lives. This ends up unintentionally playing to a core sin of the human condition that goes all the way back to the garden—envy. The greed for another person’s life and the loss of gratitude, joy, and contentment in our own.
Some have coined the stress that hits most of us Sunday night as we think about the next week as the “Monday Scaries!”
Introduce Topic: Limit #2: Your Body
Background: Good Limit #1 was TIME!. Tonight we are going to look at Good Limit #2: Your Body.
Maybe you’re here tonight and you feel Comer, “ mentally lethargic, numb, uncreative, distracted, restless. Emotional unhealthy, irritable, anger, cynical, and its twin, sarcasm, tired and worn out; immune system starting to falter.” Welcome!
Challenge Audience: Tonight is meant to be a blessing!
Let consider the limits on the body:
The Body is Inefficient
Sleep, Food, Water, Energy Conversion,
Kapic, “One can argue that over the past 150 years evangelicals in the West have spent a great deal more of their energy defending the deity of Jesus the Messiah than His full human nature. The doctrine that the Word became flesh means that God Himself affirms our flesh as good, and that affirmation liberates us from apologizing for our creaturely limitations.
Kapic, “Sleep as a Spiritual Discipline
When we are deprived of sleep for an extended time, not only do we get grumpy and often sick, but our hearts also grow more open to sin, doubts, self-condemnation, and fears.
Sleep reminds us every day that we are creatures rather than the Creator. God never sleeps. Never. Ever. Sleeps. This gives profound comfort to vulnerable creatures who live in a hostile world. (Ps 121:2-4)
Sleep is a spiritual discipline that daily reminds us of our lack of control. (Ps 33:16-18), so sleep reminds us daily that we can’t rescue ourselves: we are never strong enough, we never know enough, we never can do enough to eliminate our vulnerability. And so sleep is an act of faith.
Child’s Prayer:
“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” It sounds grim, but it originated in a time of high infant mortality rates and confirmed human vulnerability, dependence’s and need.
As a man, Jesus couldn’t endlessly keep going: He needed sleep!
The Body is Weak and Weakening
Faithfully caring for our bodies is good. Our problem is not just what others think of us but what we think of ourselves.
Kapic, “The product is often tied to a particular body image, “You could do more”; “You ought to be better.” Each judgement has the shared implication: “You are not enough.”
Human bodies matter, maybe they are all that matter. Yet the bodies on our screens and billboards are usually well under thirty, tight skinned, and with a perfect complexion. Advertisers employ airbrushes and digital manipulation, erasing small bruises on the skin, narrowing thighs, enhancing chests, elongating necks, thickening hair, and…Even the laughing model in the blown-up picture experiences the judgement of the image. The natural process of bodily change in the experience of aging is something we are not constantly told we must fight and overcome.
Might this not underestimate the power and significance of giving birth and creating new flesh out of your very own body? We want to erase the marks of real humanity and change from our bodies to fit a societal image of perfection and flawlessness.
The Body is Limiting in Time and Space.
Kapic, “Our flesh is not an insignificant. In real life we cannot escape our actual sweat glands, digestive tract, or nervous system. We can’t separate ourselves from our bodies because we do not exist as bodiless selves but as both body and soul.
Under normal conditions, we experience this holistic love through touch and communication, not ghostly, disembodied souls, but dust-derived, spirit-breathed creatures. The sin and brokenness in the world, however, have twisted and undermined that goodness and made us vulnerable to the manipulation of others.
Christians, especially conservative Christians, are often accused of hating their bodies.
You cannot be everywhere and that is frustrating if you are trying to be God.
The Body susceptible to germs and contamination.
Jesus did not hesitate to welcome, to touch, to greet others as if He belonged to them. Jesus did not belittle or ignore women and children (Mark 9:33-37), nor does he dominate, manipulate, or abuse them.
For example, rather than worry about His reputation when He sits alone with a Samaritan woman at a well, Jesus looks at her and begins a conversation. He asks for a drink. His lips would touch what she touched, so He risked contamination (i.e., becoming socially and ritually unclean).
Is there anything that the Bible says about caring for this good body?
Sabbath
Sabbath Rest was created by God.
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.
Comer, “God rested. And in doing so, He built a rhythm into the DNA of creation. When we fight this work-six-days, Sabbath-one-day-rhythm, we go against every grain of the universe.
During the revolution in France, they switched to a ten-day workweek to up productivity. And? Disaster—the economy crashed, the suicide rate skyrocketed, and productivity? It went down. It’s been proven by study after study: there is zero correlation between hurry and productivity.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
In Exodus the Sabbath command is grounded in the creation story. In the rhythm that God built into the world.
Strong and weak, rich and poor, male and female, all were to be free at least one day in seven, free for unhindered worship, refreshment, and renewal. The Sabbath was not instituted to make you feel guilty but to make you feel known and loved. Contradicting to our temptation to imagine that God’s love for us depends on our productivity, one day a week He says, “Stop; look up; look around; lift your heart; delight and rest.”
Application: Be Humbled.
God did not need to rest but we do.
Sabbath Rest is for our Good.
27 And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
Comer, “First-century Jews needed to hear the second half of that command: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Fast-forward to the twenty-first century: we aren’t legalistic about the Sabbath—most of us don’t even practice Sabbath at all. The Sabbath has largely been forgotten by the church. Our road-weary, exhausted churches have largely failed to integrate Sabbath into their lives as vital elements of Christian discipleship.
We just do not know how to sit with God anymore. We have become perhaps the most emotionally exhausted, psychologically overworked, spiritually malnourished people in history.
Application: Be Appreciative
Sabbath Rest is for Worship and Delight.
Holiday originated from Holy Day. The original Holy Day was the Sabbath.
12 “ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you ... 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
In Deuteronomy, this was the first generation to grow up in freedom. Their parents were slaves.
Comer, “Think of how we observe a holiday like Christmas or Easter. We gear up for it, plan out the day in advance, do all we can to make it special, approach it with anticipation.
Dan Allender, in his book Sabbath said: “The Sabbath, when experienced as God intended, is the best day of our lives. Sabbath is the holy time where we feast, play, dance, enjoy our spouses, sing, pray, laugh, tell stories, read, paint, walk, and watch creation in its fullness. A full day of delight and joy is more than most people can bear in a lifetime, let alone in a week.”
Kapic, “How to Sabbath”
First, Review: Take a moment to review your day, noting gifts, expressing gratitude, asking for forgiveness, strength, and wisdom in due measure.
Second, Remember: God is compassionate, He loves His children, He is near and working. Remember that He will never leave or forsake you or His church. Remember His promises and then the Gospel is genuinely good news.
Third, Rest: It is finished. The day is done, so lay it at the feet of God. You don’t need to do anything else today. But more importantly, your sins are covered, so rest in that assurance. Jesus declared, “It is finished.”
Sabbath as Subversive Spirituality
Some people have the impression that Christianity is mostly about a list of “to-dos.” But one of the most attractive things about our faith has always been its revelation that there are things you don’t have to do. In the ancient Roman world, Christianity was appealing to many because it said, “you don’t have to have sex with just anyone.” In that pagan society where women and young children were often reduced to sexual objects for men in power, the Christian faith radically declared, “No.” Believers were not even required to get married.
In its view of the world around us, from the food we eat to the clothes we wear, Christianity was stunningly liberating in terms of what you were not required to do. One of the most countercultural and radical idea in the Bible, when compared to the ancient world, is the Sabbath. One day a week you do not have to work.
This sounds to them like one of the most radical and liberating ideas they have ever heard.
Application: Be Happy
Sabbath Rest Takes Work.
Command one: Sabbath as rest and worship
Comer, “Remember.” It’s easy to forget there is a day that’s blessed and holy. “a sabbath to the Lord.” That can also be translated as “set apart for the Lord” or “dedicated to the Lord” So the Sabbath isn’t just a day for rest; it’s also a day for worship.
In fact, I find it fascinating that the Sabbath is the only “spiritual discipline” that makes it into the Ten Commandments. Not church or Bible reading, not even prayer. Sabbath is the anchor discipline of the people of God. So crucial that God lovingly commands us to remember to rest.
Comer, “No wonder the writer of Hebrews called us to “make every effort to enter that rest.” Notice the irony of that command; we are to work hard to rest well. It won’t just happen to you. It takes planning and preparation. It takes self-control, the capacity to say no to a list of good things so you can say yes to the best. Walter Brueggemann has this great line: “People who keep sabbath live all seven days differently.”
Application: Be Active
Sabbath Rest Pictures Our Eternal Home.
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
Kapic, “In His incarnation, the Creator Lord did not come to destroy His creation but to enter it, to love and heal it.
Christ is Our Rest
Some call for shorter work weeks, fewer hours for work, yoga, mindfulness techniques, and exercise regimes. They leave you wanting, longing and unsettled. This is because true human rest is not a form of self-isolation, but is necessarily tied to God’s rest. (Heb 4:9-11) John Murray concludes, “The Sabbath is not only a memorial of creation completed and redemption accomplished; it is also the promise of a glorious prospect, the foretaste of the Sabbath rest that remains for the people of God.”
The Creator is also the Redeemer, that we are not abandoned, alone, or left to our sins; until we believe that God is near, compassionate, quick to forgive, and abounding in love—until we believe these things, we cannot and will not rest.
Application: Be at Peace
Saint Augustine, The bishop of Hippo said: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
Find Rest in Christ and Enjoy Rest this week.
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