WEBVTT 00:00:00.320 --> 00:00:01.840 All right, good evening all. 00:00:02.319 --> 00:00:05.599 Invite you to take your Bible and go to Psalm 139. 00:00:05.839 --> 00:00:07.519 Psalm 139. 00:00:14.880 --> 00:00:18.480 As most of you know, Royal and I are grandparents twice over. 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:22.800 That means we're contractually obligated to love pictures of our grandsons. 00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:27.920 And uh we signed the terms of those agreements uh without even looking at the contract. 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:34.640 Um our boys live in London, uh, which means we don't get to see them as often as we'd like to. 00:00:34.799 --> 00:00:47.200 Um but thankfully, modern technology's been merciful to us because there's hardly a day that that uh goes by without us seeing a picture or a video of either one of them and often both of them. 00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:51.600 And part of the joy is not just seeing the boys, it's watching them develop. 00:00:51.840 --> 00:01:01.280 And more recently, it's been fun watching Callum not only doing a number of things in videos, but also sometimes even recognizing himself. 00:01:01.359 --> 00:01:08.879 And he'll he'll look at a video and he'll you could see his eyes bright up, and he goes, That's Callum, that's Callum. 00:01:08.959 --> 00:01:10.319 And it's really, really precious. 00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:18.239 There was one we just received a few days ago, him jumping on the bed and acting silly after recognizing he was being recorded. 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:21.280 And then he he got on top of Matt and said, Papa. 00:01:22.239 --> 00:01:25.040 And then he looked, looked by him and said, Window, right? 00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:26.640 Didn't he say window? 00:01:26.959 --> 00:01:33.040 But it's kind of fun for him just to see his eyes brighten up and look in there and look on the screen and go, that's me. 00:01:33.200 --> 00:01:34.239 That's me. 00:01:35.519 --> 00:01:42.159 And sadly, the journey begins because for the rest of his life, he's going to be looking at pictures of himself. 00:01:42.319 --> 00:01:45.280 And uh all of us have been a part of that, right? 00:01:45.439 --> 00:01:50.319 We are getting accustomed more and more to seeing photos of ourselves. 00:01:50.560 --> 00:01:52.959 And he hasn't learned to judge himself at all. 00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:56.319 He's just excited he's in there somehow on the screen. 00:01:56.640 --> 00:02:04.480 But the day will come when, like a lot of us, uh, we get a picture and we look immediately at ourselves. 00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:10.400 And inside, before we even say anything, we don't look at it with disinterested curiosity. 00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:12.000 We look at ourself. 00:02:12.319 --> 00:02:24.800 And there's some sort of like internal committee that's already performing an evaluation on what we look like, and often pronouncing a judgment before we have anything to say. 00:02:26.479 --> 00:02:36.240 Well, there's something behind that, and there's something in our world today that leads us into those kind of thoughts about our bodies. 00:02:37.599 --> 00:02:57.520 We are subjected to relentless evaluation, either by advertisers or through comparisons with others, perhaps even in our family, or off-handed comments that dig deeper than they deserve to ever be allowed in. 00:02:58.479 --> 00:03:07.919 And we assess our bodies against those standards, and we assess our bodies by those evaluations that are handed to us by the culture that we're in. 00:03:08.319 --> 00:03:13.039 The problem is, is the culture does one of two things, and they're contradictory. 00:03:13.280 --> 00:03:20.080 First of all, it says that our body is the greatest expression of our reality, right? 00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:24.240 That it is the primary currency of human worth. 00:03:24.479 --> 00:03:31.039 And yet, at the same time, it'll say that our actual bodies are not good enough and they always need something for improvement. 00:03:34.240 --> 00:03:37.840 The problem is, is neither one of those are true. 00:03:38.159 --> 00:03:48.240 And like I said, they're contradictory, but they also don't come from a place that has our best interest and our are flourishing at heart. 00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:55.039 In fact, they kind of thrive on the fact that we don't think in a flourishing way about our body. 00:03:55.680 --> 00:04:00.159 And they haven't really thought carefully or even honestly about what the body is. 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:09.360 And so we're going to go to God's Word this evening in the middle of our Imago Day series and look at something that deals with the implications of the image of God. 00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:16.959 And we'll get to a passage that will talk about why this message fits into this series. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:25.360 The Christian world has often talked about the body, but it hasn't always talked about it in a faithful way to Scripture. 00:04:25.680 --> 00:04:31.120 You may, you may have, even in your own self, some understanding of some of these ideas. 00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:40.879 That the body, yes, is part of who we are, but it's the inferior half of the body-soul distinction. 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:58.560 Or you might think of it as the source of temptation, that somehow, if we just would get rid of this body, that we would be able to be free and flourishing in our spiritual life, that something about our actual physicality is holding us back. 00:04:59.920 --> 00:05:14.160 And given those ideas and others that are like them, we think of somehow as our body as something to be managed until we get to the place where we can just be released from it and we can enter into that glorious place in which we're in God's presence. 00:05:15.199 --> 00:05:27.439 Well, as we've gone through the Imago Day series, starting in Genesis and talking about God's declaration of us as the image of God, we must remember that he made that declaration over embodied people. 00:05:28.399 --> 00:05:39.120 And as we'll see when we get to 1 Corinthians 15, that we will bear the image of the heavenly, talking about the resurrected body of Jesus Christ. 00:05:39.279 --> 00:05:44.079 So there is very much a context to what we're going to be looking at this evening. 00:05:44.639 --> 00:06:03.120 But it's also the most intimate part of this series because it's talking about, well, the very body we brought into this room this evening, the very body that we have been evaluating perhaps our whole life, the very body that perhaps others have done wrong things to. 00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:12.879 Our bodies that don't always work as we would like them to be and have never measured up to some standard we've kept in our head. 00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:21.600 And so the text that we're going to be looking at tonight will help shape a biblical understanding of our body, particularly as it's made in the image of God. 00:06:21.839 --> 00:06:29.439 We'll be looking at Psalm 139, we'll be looking at 1 Corinthians 6, and we'll be looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 00:06:29.680 --> 00:06:49.600 And here's what I want us to sort of carry through those three passages is because our bodies were made by God, and our bodies are indwelt by the Spirit as believers, and that God intends to resurrect our bodies, then we should be offering and presenting our bodies to God. 00:06:50.480 --> 00:06:52.399 And so let's look at that first one. 00:06:52.480 --> 00:06:56.879 We are to present our body to God because it is his craftsmanship. 00:06:58.639 --> 00:07:08.560 We're here in Psalm 139, and if you're at all familiar with Psalm 139, you know that it's one of the most intimate personal psalms in the whole Psalter. 00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:20.959 It's a meditation on God who searches us, who knows us, who understands our sitting down and our rising, who knows even the very intents of our thoughts from afar. 00:07:21.600 --> 00:07:36.879 And in the middle of the psalm, David traces it all the way back to his origin when he began in the womb, before he had done anything to deserve any attention. 00:07:37.439 --> 00:07:40.000 Now God knew him totally then. 00:07:40.560 --> 00:07:43.120 So take a look at verse 13 with me. 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:49.439 For it is you who created my inward parts. 00:07:49.759 --> 00:07:54.160 You knitted me together in my mother's womb. 00:07:54.480 --> 00:08:00.240 Well, take a look at those two verbs, created and knit, because they're very important words. 00:08:00.879 --> 00:08:07.839 The first one talks about creation, to make something, to possess something. 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:15.920 It's uh the process in which God is not just observing our physical forming, but he's the actual author of it. 00:08:16.079 --> 00:08:18.480 He's engaged in making us. 00:08:19.600 --> 00:08:22.160 And then the second one, knit. 00:08:23.839 --> 00:08:37.440 It talks about a craftsman who's attending to structure, who's attending to texture, who's bringing together complexity and order in order to develop us as we are. 00:08:38.159 --> 00:08:40.159 These are glorious words. 00:08:40.399 --> 00:08:49.679 These are not words of some emotionalist, distant biological happening just by way of chance. 00:08:50.000 --> 00:09:08.080 This is a personal God who's engaged at the very origin of our person in bringing us together by his creation and his craftsmanship, who's brought together all the complexity and all the order that makes up our human body. 00:09:08.480 --> 00:09:10.639 Now take a look at verse 14. 00:09:11.600 --> 00:09:20.799 Not only do we see that God is the active agent in making our body, but we also see the quality of what he's done. 00:09:21.440 --> 00:09:26.960 I will praise you because I've been remarkably and wondrously made. 00:09:27.120 --> 00:09:30.639 So instead of looking at the verbs this time, we'll look at the adverbs. 00:09:30.960 --> 00:09:34.480 Remarkably made, wondrously made. 00:09:34.960 --> 00:09:37.120 These are interesting words. 00:09:37.840 --> 00:09:42.000 They will go a place I don't think all of us might expect them to go. 00:09:42.240 --> 00:10:00.480 The first one, remarkably made, is the very word in the Psalms for the fear of the Lord, that sense of awe that we all receive when we find ourselves actually contemplating God as a reality. 00:10:02.159 --> 00:10:03.919 That is what he's saying. 00:10:04.080 --> 00:10:09.840 I have been made in an awe-inspiring, fearsome way. 00:10:10.639 --> 00:10:12.559 Remarkably made. 00:10:13.200 --> 00:10:21.759 But take a look at the next adverb, not only remarkably made, but wondrously made. 00:10:22.559 --> 00:10:52.960 And here is the very same words for the wonder of God's activity as he's demonstrated his power in miraculous ways in the book of Acts, or the book of Exodus, rather, where he's met up against Pharaoh and has presented the mighty deeds of God, where he's parted the Red Sea, where he's brought water out of the rock, where he's fed the people with manna, this miraculous demonstration of God's awe-inspiring activity. 00:10:54.639 --> 00:10:56.000 So think about this. 00:10:56.639 --> 00:11:17.120 The psalmist has reached for some very, very important words to think about his body creation, craftsmanship, and the wondrous fear of God in his presence, and the fact that he has acted with miraculous ability. 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:20.000 That's our bodies. 00:11:20.399 --> 00:11:28.559 And because God is acted in such a way as the creator of who we are, we should present our body to him. 00:11:30.159 --> 00:11:31.679 Verse 15 is interesting. 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:36.080 He says, My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret. 00:11:37.200 --> 00:11:45.279 It's interesting, you know, David is described as uh a relatively handsome young man when he's mentioned in scripture. 00:11:45.519 --> 00:11:47.360 But that's not where David goes. 00:11:47.519 --> 00:11:51.519 He doesn't say, Hey, I look better than the rest of the guys I went to high school with. 00:11:52.159 --> 00:12:01.039 He says, My bones, you know, those things on the inside of him, those things that nobody's kind of going, nice femur there, David. 00:12:01.360 --> 00:12:04.799 You know, not saying a word about those sorts of things. 00:12:05.039 --> 00:12:19.200 But he's saying, you know me from the very inside of me, my my frame, my structure, the substance of who I am, what actually makes me me. 00:12:20.399 --> 00:12:21.600 You know it. 00:12:22.480 --> 00:12:25.440 Now, David's not running into a new stream here. 00:12:25.519 --> 00:12:27.840 He's pulling back from Genesis, isn't he? 00:12:28.080 --> 00:12:29.519 About God's creation. 00:12:30.159 --> 00:12:37.440 He's even talking about Job, where Job talks about the same thing, where God's hands have shaped him and knit him together. 00:12:38.080 --> 00:12:52.399 And perhaps even alluding to some of that creative work of God in the new creation, in which Paul talks about that being God's craftship or workmanship, that we were created unto good works. 00:12:52.559 --> 00:12:57.600 We've been made anew for a completely different purpose than our life of sin. 00:12:59.440 --> 00:13:04.639 So let's take about some of these real life world examples of evaluation. 00:13:05.679 --> 00:13:19.919 Take a person in his or her 50s, spent 40 years cataloging their body, using the evaluations of the world with a precision that they wouldn't bring into any other area of life whatsoever. 00:13:20.399 --> 00:13:31.440 Every photograph, every mirror, every fitting room brings a full-on onslaught of that mental checklist of whether you measure up or not. 00:13:33.039 --> 00:13:44.320 Or take someone who's a teenager who's just starting to really find the overwhelming strength of that inner monologue about his or her body that's running continuously. 00:13:44.639 --> 00:13:51.120 And it's there underneath every other thought, like a second track of a mental, a mental uh functioning. 00:13:52.639 --> 00:13:56.480 Psalm 139 doesn't enter into that conversation. 00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:01.600 It doesn't go in there and say, I have a different way to think about it. 00:14:02.399 --> 00:14:09.120 It doesn't wrestle with the world's evaluation and say, let me just add a little bit of a different perspective here. 00:14:09.440 --> 00:14:11.759 It shuts the conversation down. 00:14:12.480 --> 00:14:15.840 It says this isn't how you should be thinking about yourself. 00:14:16.159 --> 00:14:22.000 The question is not whether or not your body meets that inner or cultural standard. 00:14:22.559 --> 00:14:27.200 It's about whether or not you recognize what your body is. 00:14:27.919 --> 00:14:33.440 The wondrous, the remarkable craftsmanship of the creator God. 00:14:34.799 --> 00:14:37.440 That's a different question altogether. 00:14:37.679 --> 00:14:41.919 That's a different evaluation than what most of us give to our bodies. 00:14:42.879 --> 00:14:46.720 Because that is God's definition of our body. 00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:50.240 That it is his creation, it's his craftsmanship. 00:14:50.399 --> 00:14:58.080 And what he does is remarkable and wondrous in the arena of worship itself. 00:15:00.080 --> 00:15:20.240 And so, a couple of things that we can do this week while we're walking around and passing a mirror or looking at somebody's uh phone and seeing ourselves on it, we might have to change the way we immediately respond and tell ourselves, I am remarkably and wondrously made. 00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:28.000 And let that just settle over the audits that we give ourselves. 00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:32.320 I'm remarkably and wondrously made. 00:15:41.279 --> 00:15:46.799 It is a substitution of one authority for another. 00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:52.559 It's saying that my evaluation is more important than God's statement about who we are. 00:15:52.879 --> 00:15:55.840 But there's the other side, which is just as wrong. 00:15:56.159 --> 00:16:02.960 It is the elevation of our body to the primary project and projection of who we are. 00:16:04.480 --> 00:16:07.679 That too refuses to hear Psalm 139. 00:16:08.480 --> 00:16:13.279 We need to listen to what God says about who we are, God's craftsmanship. 00:16:13.519 --> 00:16:16.960 It's not self-achievement, and it's not just good genes. 00:16:17.440 --> 00:16:20.720 It's about God's good work within us. 00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:30.960 Because David's response here is not about aesthetic satisfaction, it's about worship of a God who made us. 00:16:31.519 --> 00:16:44.320 And the right response to our body is not to continue to evaluate it the way the world does, but to handle it the way God has given it to us, as a craftsmanship out of his creative hand. 00:16:44.879 --> 00:16:47.039 And that brings us to the second point. 00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:57.840 Not only to present our body to God because he made it, but we should present our body to God in honor because the Holy Spirit dwells within it. 00:16:57.919 --> 00:17:00.559 So let's go over to 1 Corinthians chapter 6. 00:17:00.960 --> 00:17:03.200 1 Corinthians chapter 6. 00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:09.200 And in this chapter, Paul is writing to a congregation in crisis. 00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:16.880 Corinthians live in a city, it's one of the most cosmopolitan cities of the Roman world. 00:17:17.039 --> 00:17:22.079 And it's also one of the most morally complex cities of the Roman world. 00:17:22.400 --> 00:17:35.119 And the church, unfortunately, has imported in a number of assumptions of its surrounding culture and the way it's acting with inside the community of Christ. 00:17:36.319 --> 00:17:43.440 And Paul wants to tell them something, and I'd like for us to land particularly in verses 19 and 20, but we'll be looking at a few more verses. 00:17:43.680 --> 00:17:52.960 And he says this to them Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? 00:17:53.359 --> 00:17:59.839 You're not your own, for you were bought with a price, so glorify God with your body. 00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:06.799 Now, Paul is giving that response to something that I think he's answering back to them in verse 12. 00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:08.960 So take a look at verse 12. 00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:13.920 And you see this phrase in parentheses. 00:18:15.119 --> 00:18:18.240 I think it's exactly what they were saying in the church. 00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:21.440 Everything is permissible. 00:18:23.119 --> 00:18:24.880 Why would they say that? 00:18:25.599 --> 00:18:30.960 Well, because there was a logic underneath it that came from the culture, not Christ. 00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:40.640 And what they were saying is well, the body is material, and material things belong to a lower category than spiritual things. 00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:52.960 And because the body is at a lower category than spiritual things, then what the body does with food and what the body does with sexual activity is spiritually irrelevant. 00:18:53.599 --> 00:18:57.680 What matters is the soul, because it'll live for on. 00:18:58.480 --> 00:19:02.400 The body's temporary, so it doesn't really matter. 00:19:02.799 --> 00:19:09.920 Now, Paul's answer to that question is immediate, and his answer to that question is total. 00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:21.359 So let's take a look at what he has to say. 00:19:21.599 --> 00:19:22.880 Verse 15. 00:19:23.920 --> 00:19:28.000 He tells us there that our body is a member of Christ. 00:19:29.119 --> 00:19:34.480 Don't you know that your bodies are a part of Christ's body? 00:19:36.240 --> 00:19:38.240 It's an interesting statement. 00:19:39.039 --> 00:19:49.039 The physical body of a believer is joined to Christ as much as his mind and his spirit. 00:19:49.519 --> 00:19:56.400 Not simply the immaterial part of who we are, but the material part of who we are. 00:19:56.880 --> 00:19:58.720 Take a look at verse 20. 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:01.440 He drills down and doubles down on it. 00:20:01.759 --> 00:20:05.359 You were bought with a price. 00:20:07.839 --> 00:20:09.759 What was the purchase of that? 00:20:10.160 --> 00:20:14.480 The body of Christ, the incarnation. 00:20:15.039 --> 00:20:28.720 Christ didn't come in some temporary accommodation of a body, entering flesh in order to accomplish his work, and then departing from it and leaving the shell of it here on earth. 00:20:29.839 --> 00:20:34.799 The disciples, when they looked in the tomb, looked there and it was empty. 00:20:35.119 --> 00:20:35.680 Why? 00:20:35.920 --> 00:20:39.680 Because the body of Christ was resurrected. 00:20:40.880 --> 00:20:48.880 The body of the Son of God was part of that price of our redemption. 00:20:50.640 --> 00:20:52.319 It belongs to Him. 00:20:52.559 --> 00:20:57.039 So let's read verses 13 to 15 and just see the flow of logic here. 00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:02.160 An answer to this question: everything is permissible. 00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:08.880 Food is for the stomach, and the stomach for food, and God will do away with both of them. 00:21:09.200 --> 00:21:17.200 And he stops and he says, However, the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 00:21:17.519 --> 00:21:22.480 God raised up the Lord, and he will also raise us up by his power. 00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:26.480 Do you not know that your bodies are part of Christ's body? 00:21:26.799 --> 00:21:30.640 So should I take a part of Christ's body and make it a part of a prostitute? 00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:32.160 Absolutely not. 00:21:34.319 --> 00:21:36.960 What is the Corinthian logic here? 00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:43.519 That the body and the spirit are separate, non intersecting entities. 00:21:43.759 --> 00:21:48.960 And what happens with one doesn't have the same effect that happens on the other. 00:21:49.359 --> 00:21:52.319 But that is just not the reality of the case. 00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:59.680 God did not form Adam and Eve in some disembodied spirit and said, Let me grab a hunk of clay here. 00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:03.119 And give them a shell that will allow them to live inside of it. 00:22:03.359 --> 00:22:06.160 He made a person out of both of them. 00:22:06.400 --> 00:22:16.000 And the Hebrew word for soul, nepesh, is the word that doesn't think of some immaterial part separate from a material part. 00:22:16.400 --> 00:22:20.319 It is the person, holistically. 00:22:20.559 --> 00:22:22.960 And this is what Paul is saying here. 00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:29.279 But he goes deeper, and I think he gets much, much clearer here in verse 19. 00:22:31.359 --> 00:22:38.559 Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? 00:22:39.279 --> 00:22:42.559 Now there are two Greek words for temple. 00:22:43.279 --> 00:22:52.400 One of them deals with the temple complex in all of its aspects, all the outer courts and all the walls, and all the parameters of it. 00:22:52.559 --> 00:23:09.359 And then there's another word that deals with the holy of holies, the actual place where God's presence is said to be residing and meeting with people on earth. 00:23:09.920 --> 00:23:13.599 This is the word that Paul uses here. 00:23:14.160 --> 00:23:24.400 Do you not know that your body is the very place where God Himself is intersecting heaven and earth? 00:23:26.480 --> 00:23:28.640 That's a remarkable statement. 00:23:30.559 --> 00:23:35.519 That our bodies are not part of the broader temple complex with all its courts and colonnades. 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:44.960 Our bodies are to be seen as the inner sanctuary, the holy of holies, this specific chamber where the presence of God resides. 00:23:46.640 --> 00:23:47.599 That place. 00:23:50.640 --> 00:23:57.920 Paul is applying the sacred terminology, just as David did, to our bodies. 00:23:58.640 --> 00:24:03.279 I mean, think about God's presence in the tabernacle in Exodus 40. 00:24:03.599 --> 00:24:10.000 Tabernacle completed, the glory of God fills it, and even Moses has to stay outside of it. 00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:12.240 It's so glorious he can't get in. 00:24:13.039 --> 00:24:19.119 Or you think about John 1.14, the word became flesh and tabernacled among us. 00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:25.200 And there is that idea that God's presence in human flesh. 00:24:40.640 --> 00:24:47.839 That somehow we can maintain a robust prayer life and we can treat our body with chronic neglect. 00:24:49.119 --> 00:25:02.640 That we can section off our physical life as the secular portion of our existence, and then give attention to the spiritual part of our existence. 00:25:04.079 --> 00:25:14.480 Or to even go as far as the Corinthians did to think that somehow our sexual activity has no bearing upon our spiritual life at all. 00:25:16.559 --> 00:25:21.200 Paul will not permit a single bit of any of that at all. 00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:25.119 And his refusal is not a prohibition. 00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:37.759 His refusal is to define who we are and to show us the honor of our bodies, not simply to tell us what not to do with them. 00:25:38.720 --> 00:25:56.480 Just like Psalm 139, elevating our understanding about ourselves as God's creation, God's craftsmanship, fearfully and wondrously made, but also to see our bodies as God's possession and the very dwelling place of God Himself. 00:25:59.279 --> 00:26:04.559 Think about where you might feel like you're in a special place. 00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:14.000 For our society, particularly our American culture, thinking of things as sacred is really a hard thing to do sometimes. 00:26:14.319 --> 00:26:23.839 But there have been some times in my life where I've really been caught out of myself to think of a place as unique and different and special. 00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:31.440 And one was when I took my son Ben to Washington, D.C., and we were there at the Vietnam Memorial and the Wall. 00:26:32.880 --> 00:26:43.359 And I could cry about it even now, but just watching men walk up to that wall and families walk up to that wall and to and to touch names there. 00:26:45.759 --> 00:26:47.039 I just had to stop. 00:26:47.519 --> 00:26:53.359 There was nothing to say, but just to be quiet in the presence of what was going on in that place. 00:26:55.119 --> 00:27:06.160 And then the first time I went to the 9-11 museum, and we went down there, and there's this room where there's pictures of all the people who died. 00:27:07.119 --> 00:27:10.880 And I went in there and I was just familiarizing myself with it. 00:27:10.960 --> 00:27:23.440 And this lady came in with a small group of I can't, five or six people, and she she she went to one photograph and she said, This is my hero. 00:27:24.559 --> 00:27:29.920 And this man had given his life to make sure hers wasn't taken. 00:27:31.440 --> 00:27:34.400 And again, I I backed out. 00:27:34.480 --> 00:27:41.759 I actually walked backwards out of there because I thought this is too sacred of a moment for me to be in. 00:27:41.920 --> 00:27:44.160 This is this is extremely special. 00:27:44.640 --> 00:27:46.160 And I backed out. 00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:50.319 What is Paul saying here? 00:27:50.640 --> 00:27:55.200 Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. 00:27:55.839 --> 00:28:03.440 This is a sacred spot where God has made his presence known. 00:28:06.160 --> 00:28:13.279 And so we are to be in a place of reverential care when we deal with our bodies. 00:28:13.599 --> 00:28:38.559 That it is as much God's as our thinking or as we might separate ourselves out to be in our spiritual understanding, taking care of our bodies when it needs rest, giving it adequate nutrition, providing for it when it's ill, ensuring that it's in a place of service when it's called upon to be somewhere, to help someone. 00:28:38.880 --> 00:28:48.000 All those things are all wrapped up in the idea of understanding that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. 00:28:48.640 --> 00:28:52.880 Now let's go to the last point and go to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 00:29:00.400 --> 00:29:02.559 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 00:29:03.039 --> 00:29:10.079 Paul talks about our bodies in a particular way that is quite a bit different than sometimes we might speak. 00:29:14.480 --> 00:29:24.960 He talks about groaning and waiting and longing for a day of redemption, not release from his body. 00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:38.799 And the trajectory of Scripture shows us, as he indicates here, that it's not escape from the material world, but into a purely spiritual existence that's what we're looking for at the end. 00:29:38.960 --> 00:29:44.880 But it is a new heaven and a new earth in which resurrected bodies will dwell. 00:29:46.960 --> 00:29:57.519 And what he tells us here in this passage of scripture in 1 Corinthians 15 is that the resurrection of Christ is the pattern and the promise. 00:29:58.160 --> 00:30:00.559 We've talked about that just a moment ago. 00:30:00.960 --> 00:30:20.000 That Christ's body rose, the graveclothes folded and left, the physical body recognizable, touchable, Thomas putting his hands in the wounds, the disciples eating what he cooked on the beach, and he ascended bodily into heaven. 00:30:20.160 --> 00:30:23.519 We believe the bodily ascension of Christ. 00:30:24.400 --> 00:30:31.759 And Paul's argument here when he talks about this is to say that Christ's resurrection is the first fruit. 00:30:32.160 --> 00:30:42.480 It's the first collection of the new creation fruit that comes from Christ's victory over sin, death, and the grave. 00:30:45.119 --> 00:30:50.720 That what happened to his body is going to happen to our body. 00:30:51.920 --> 00:30:54.640 Notice what he says in verse 50. 00:30:56.640 --> 00:31:03.519 What I'm saying, brothers and sisters, is this flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption. 00:31:03.599 --> 00:31:04.880 Listen, I'm telling you a mystery. 00:31:05.039 --> 00:31:08.000 We will not all sleep, but we will be changed. 00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:17.359 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. 00:31:17.599 --> 00:31:24.880 For this corruptible body must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body must be clothed with immortality. 00:31:25.119 --> 00:31:37.440 And when this corruptible body is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place. 00:31:37.680 --> 00:31:40.480 Death has been swallowed up in victory. 00:31:40.720 --> 00:31:42.720 O death, where is your victory? 00:31:42.960 --> 00:31:45.599 Oh death, where is your sting? 00:31:47.359 --> 00:31:48.640 This body. 00:31:49.119 --> 00:32:17.200 This body that's been touched by illness, this body which has been broken in different places, this body which has been looked after and neglected in many different ways, this body which is the object of other people's evaluations and my own, this body, this body will be changed and made incorruptible and immortal. 00:32:18.480 --> 00:32:32.000 Because Christ's body also was raised and ascended and is still in a bodily form in the glorious presence of the Father. 00:32:33.680 --> 00:32:37.039 He entered it permanently and irreversibly. 00:32:37.359 --> 00:32:40.480 He didn't shed his body when his work was done. 00:32:40.799 --> 00:32:45.920 His body was brought into the eternal presence of the Father on high. 00:32:47.599 --> 00:32:48.880 So think about this. 00:32:49.039 --> 00:32:59.839 The next time you see a photograph, the next time you look, and there you are, and the evaluation's about to kick off. 00:33:01.039 --> 00:33:05.599 Say to yourself this I'm fearfully and wondrously made. 00:33:06.160 --> 00:33:13.200 Say to yourself, indwelling in me is the very presence of God. 00:33:14.160 --> 00:33:20.799 Say to yourself, Yeah, you haven't seen this body yet the way it's going to be. 00:33:21.119 --> 00:33:34.799 This body will be transformed into that glorious immortality in which I will in every way, shape, or form conform to the glorious likeness of Jesus Christ. 00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:39.279 That is part of the Imago Day. 00:33:39.519 --> 00:33:51.359 And like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, yes, we bear the image of the earthly, but through the resurrection, we too will bear the image of the heavenly. 00:33:51.759 --> 00:33:53.920 It's part of his redemption. 00:33:54.240 --> 00:33:55.759 How wonderful it is. 00:33:56.000 --> 00:34:02.079 We don't have to neglect it, we don't have to talk bad about it, and we certainly don't need to be evaluating it. 00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:06.480 We just need to hold it with respect and care and hope. 00:34:06.799 --> 00:34:08.239 So let's pray. 00:34:10.159 --> 00:34:25.039 Father, we thank you that your salvation is ours, that you've granted to us life in the Savior, in a life in ways that I has not seen nor is ear heard, nor entered into the hearts of men. 00:34:26.159 --> 00:34:57.760 We thank you that what we look at is wondrous, crafted by you, with complexity and organization brought so that we could exist in this world in the way we do, that our bodies are the very place in which you inhabit, that our bodies are the very focus of our hope that we will be brought into your presence, resurrected. 00:34:58.719 --> 00:35:20.960 Father, in whatever way we can, as we consider our bodies throughout the days that we have, whether our bodies reside in weakness or strength, whether they're evaluated well or poorly by the world's standards, may we present it to you and honor it as you want us to honor it. 00:35:21.679 --> 00:35:31.760 And Lord, give us that abiding hope that this body too, just as Job said, in my flesh I will see God. 00:35:32.079 --> 00:35:33.920 And we pray this in his name. 00:35:34.239 --> 00:35:34.880 Amen.