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“The early bird gets the worm.” “Good things come to those who wait.” “Opposites attract.” “Birds of a feather flock together.” “Attack is the best form of defense.” “He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.” “Great minds think alike.” “Fools seldom differ.” “Clothes make the man.” “You cannot judge a book by its cover.” “Familiarity breeds contempt.” “Home is where the heart is.” We’ve all heard these idioms before. Probably most of us have used them. But isn’t it amazing that these idioms precisely contradict one another?! How do you know which one is right? Or do you just pick one to back up whatever decision you’re planning to make anyway? So many of our everyday proverbs are sending us mixed messages. But it’s not just these handy-dandy proverbs.

Some of you know this already, but I go to Planet Fitness. It’s pretty cheap and they have pretty much everything that I want to use. [By the way this sermon is not sponsored by Planet Fitness]. But it’s a weird place to be really. For starters, almost everything is purple. But far more bizarre is the completely inconsistent messaging. On the one hand, you’re surrounded by all this equipment, some of it pretty intimidating looking, you’re surrounded by guys squatting 400 lbs. and women running 5 minute miles on treadmills. On the countless TVs are all the latest music videos, most of them displaying scantily clad women in top shape and men showing off bulging arms and six-pack abs. Even the instructions on the machines have computer generated images of ripped dudes and toned women! The message? There is an ideal body, and your body should look like that!

But then, fixed to the walls in giant purple block letters are the words, “The Judgment Free Zone!” And interrupting those music videos is the same messaging. “The Judgment Free Zone!” In other words, “Don’t worry about what you look like! We don’t care. You should have a positive image of your own body and celebrate who you are. We won’t judge at all!” Well, which is it?! Am I supposed to look like the people on the TV, on the instruction labels? Or am I not supposed to care?

Well, it’s not just Planet Fitness. Several years ago, Dove soap started their “Real Beauty” campaign, encouraging all people everywhere to get over the objectification of the body and simply love and accept themselves as they were. Olay had a similar spiel with their “Love the skin you’re in” slogan. But then again, in 2019, there were 41,370 gyms in US. And in the same year, the cosmetics industry was worth $93.5 billion dollars, and cosmetic surgeons made around $16.5 billion dollars. So which is it? Accept your body? Or make it something else?

So what should Christians think about all of this? Well, frankly, we haven’t been all that clear either. Many Christians have bought hook, line, and sinker, that the real you, the person you really are is your soul! It’s the stuff inside that makes you who you are. Your body doesn’t define you. Your body is just a shell, just a vehicle to get your soul from Krispy Kreme to Club Fitness! Or, in some cases, some Christians even think of the body as a bad thing. “Some glad mornin’ when this life is over I’ll fly away To a home on God’s celestial shore. I’ll fly away. When I die, Hallelujah, by and by, I’ll fly away.” The body is a nuisance, an anchor fixing me to this horrible world and I can’t wait to be free of it, to be pure spirit, using my spiritual wings to float around in the heavenly ether. And so Christians feel at liberty to drink too much, eat too much, smoke, fail to exercise, and even indulge in sexual immorality. Why not if the body doesn’t really matter, if the body is not the real me, if the real me is the immaterial soul inside. Some idolize the body, turning it into a god. Some disparage the body, considering it an unhappy reality we just have to live with . . . for now.

Brothers and sisters, that is not the Scriptural view of things. It is a Greek, not a Christian perspective. Scripture tells us that after God formed Adam and Eve from the dust of the earth, He looked at their bodies and said, “Good!” Scripture tells us that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”. It tells us that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. It tells us that death is “the final enemy”.

You see, brothers and sisters, God loves your body. He still thinks that the human body is “good”. In fact, God so values the human body that He was willing to become human. In Jesus, God the Son became a human body, was nourished in Mary’s womb, was born like a human is born. He ate and drank, played and slept and grew. When He rose from the dead, He did not rise as a ghost, as a spirit. He rose as a human body. He ate fish after the resurrection. And when He ascended into heaven and took His seat at the Father’s right hand, He did it as a human body. Just think of this . . . even now, there is a human body who reigns over all, who intercedes for you with the Father. So if you want to know what God thinks of the body, just remember this. God baptized your body. And on the last day He will raise your body.

Your body matters. And what you do in your body matters. Paul says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.” Your body is not yours. It is God’s. He made it. He bought it with Jesus’ sacrifice. He will raise it again. You body is God’s. So Paul says, “glorify God in your body.” How do we do that? How do we steward the gift of our bodies?

Well, first, there are things we don’t do. We don’t abuse and neglect our bodies. We don’t treat them as if they don’t matter, as if they’re “just a shell”. We don’t gorge ourselves on unhealthy food, or drink excessively, or anything else like that. You are a human being, and human beings are body and soul. It is this body that God made and it is this body that Jesus will raise. So you take care of it. We don’t treat out bodies as if they were amusement parks. We don’t treat them as if they were ours to do with as we please! You treat your body with honor, because God honored the human body with the incarnation. So if you’re wondering if one of your particular habits, or routines, or practices is OK or not, ask yourself that question. “Does this action bear witness to the truth that God intends to raise this body? Does this action glorify God by honoring His body?” Because it is His body.

But there’s more to it than that. It’s true, we do honor the body as God’s gift. But we don’t worship the body as a god. Our bodies, like all of God’s gifts to us, are to be used, are to be stewarded. To what end? What’s the goal? To learn that, we turn Jesus Himself. He is the Second Adam, the One who did not fall into the same sin as the first Adam. Jesus is the human being who got it right!

How does Jesus use His body? Jesus eats when He’s hungry. Drinks when He’s thirsty. Sleeps when He’s tired. He goes to parties and enjoys good food and fine wine. He even makes wine and bread! But Jesus is not controlled by His body. For forty days in the wilderness, He eats and drinks nothing because He knows that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” He touches lepers and hangs around the sick, endangering His own health. And then, on the night in which He was betrayed, Jesus gathered His disciples to celebrate the Passover. “And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’”

In a matter of hours, Jesus would show that He meant exactly what He’d said at that supper. He offers his face to fists, His back to the whip, His head to thorns, His hands and feet to nails, His side to a Roman spear. Why? Why would He subject His body to so much suffering, to death even? Because Jesus knew that preserving the body, that safety is not the highest priority. He knew that His body was to be used for God’s purposes, for God’s goal . . . and not for His own.

In spite of the danger, in spite of guaranteed death, Peter says that Jesus entrusted “himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” Jesus used His body for you, to earn your forgiveness, life, and salvation. And He rose so that when He returns, you too might rise.

In chapter 11 of Romans, Paul gets absolutely carried away. He writes about the mystery hidden for ages but now revealed – the mystery that in Jesus Christ, God’s covenant is not for the Jews only. It’s for all peoples of the world! “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God,” he writes. “How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

Sounds like the end of the book, the end of the story, doesn’t it? But not so fast. In the very next verse Paul writes, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Your body is a gift from God. And it is to be used as a sacrifice in service to others.

So this afternoon, when you leave here, and when Monday morning rolls around and you’ve forgotten pretty everything I said here today, ask yourself these kinds of questions: “Am I using my hands as a living sacrifice to serve others? Am I using my tongue as a living sacrifice to build up and reprove and encourage?  Am I using my ears as a living sacrifice to help a hurting brother or sister? Am I using my eyes, my feet, my brain as a living sacrifice to serve others?”

This is how to use your body. This is what it means to be a steward of the gift of your body. To make a sacrifice of it, as Jesus did. Paul says, the right use of your body is “your spiritual worship”.  And if in your case that even means losing your body in death, don’t fear . . . you’re going to get a new one anyway. Amen.