Sermon Tone Analysis

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.”