January 24, 2010 Pastor Tim Pusey

IT’S MY BODY, ISN’T IT?
1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Some people, not wanting to leave their houses vacant when they’re gone for long periods of time, prefer to have someone stay in their house. We call such people “house sitters.” I suppose the concept is a take-off on baby-sitters. It’s not a bad idea, but, as is the case with lots of good ideas, it can go bad. Let me describe a couple of nightmarish house sitting experiences.

In the first nightmare, the house sitter redecorates your house while you’re gone—replacing what you chose with what she might like: changing an earth-tone paint in the living room to a fairly bold pink and replacing your new Berber carpet with shag. And when you expressed your horror at her choices, your house sitter simply said, “You know, the house just didn’t express me. I needed a house that communicated who I am.” And your response? “It’s not yours! My house doesn’t exist to reflect you! I asked you to take care of the house, not take over the house!”

But you might even prefer the first nightmare to the second. He didn’t redecorate; he simply neglected. He never washed a dish, never dusted the house, never took out the trash, and never mowed the lawn. “I knew I was just going to be here a few months, so I figured you wouldn’t mind.” Of course you mind!

Both house sitters made the same mistake: they acted as if they owned the house. How could they?! But how could we? When it comes to our bodies, the Bible declares that we don’t own them. Listen to what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians, chapter 6—
[Read 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, NIV]

As followers of Christ, are we to use our bodies to indulge our passions? Are we to do whatever we please with our bodies—according to what we feel is good or appropriate? No. As followers of Christ, we are to use our bodies in ways that honor the Lord. Your body and my body are God’s instruments, intended for His work and His glory. Therefore, we are to honor God with our bodies.

Two weeks ago I began a series of sermons dealing with stewardship. Two Sundays ago we affirmed that everything we have and everything we are ultimately belong to God—He’s simply entrusted them to us and we are to use them as He would. We are to be “stewards” of them. Last Sunday I raised the question of “What Shall I Give Him?”—and we considered what we are to give back to the Lord. We talked about the importance of trusting God, we talked about giving one-tenth of all we gain—our tithe—back to the Lord as an act of worship, and we talked about our faithful and generous God who wants to teach us faithfulness and generosity. In the context of that sermon, I challenged you to consider ways you can be faithful with every resource even when this life comes to an end—which is the very reason for Legacy Ministries. And let me encourage you to at least go to the workshops we’re offering tomorrow to help you with those very things.

Today, I want to talk about our need, as God’s children, to learn to be wise stewards of our own bodies—which, as we just read, don’t really belong to us after all.
You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19b-20)
This may very well be the greatest challenge for us in this challenge to be faithful stewards. It’s embracing the reality that God has entrusted this body to me—and it’s the only one I’m going to get. I have no idea how many years I’ll get to keep this body—but God expects me to take good care of it, recognizing that it is a gift from God in order that I might bring honor to Him.

The Corinthians had serious problems with this idea. When it came to their bodies, they insisted, “We can do anything we want to do!” Their philosophical framework separated body from spirit. They saw no connect between the body and the soul, so they concluded, “Have fun with the body, just honor God with the spirit.” Wild Saturdays and worshipful Sundays. No problem.

Paul passionately disagreed, reminding his readers that God has woven together the body and the soul. “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?” he said. Our bodies are not toys. Our bodies are not immaterial to our spiritual journey. Our bodies are designed and created as tools.

I read this week about a mechanic who had a sign on his toolbox which read, “Don’t ask to borrow my tools. I use them to feed my family.” I wondered if he was a good-natured, friendly guy who talked with lots of people and genuinely liked to help them—but he’d been burned by those who borrowed tools and didn’t return them or borrowed them and returned them in bad condition or borrowed them and returned them after a long period of time. To do his work, a mechanic needs his tools! He needs them when he needs them and he needs them to be in good condition. When he looks for his wrench, he needs it now. His work is important, thus his tools are important.

What work is more important than the Lord’s work? Doesn’t it just make sense that God’s tools need to be maintained—and available and ready to be used when called upon? So if our bodies are tools for God’s purposes, how are we to maintain them? We need to eat healthy foods. Our bodies need exercise. Our bodies need rest. And we need to stay away from those things that are harmful to our bodies. It’s a matter of stewardship. This is a sermon I should have preached early in the Christmas season, right? Before we indulged ourselves on all those sweets!

Please understand, I’m not trying to inflict a guilt trip on anyone today. This is an area of stewardship where most all of us have to recognize that we can do a lot better. To one degree or another, most of us have mismanaged our bodies. But we can’t just excuse it away—and we need to understand that this is more than just a “physical” thing. There is a spiritual principle at stake in this matter of being a good steward of the one body the Lord has entrusted to you! Our bodies were made for the Lord, and so the Lord cares about our bodies.

I see verses 19-20 as key verses for us today. Listen to it from the words of the New Living Translation—
Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, NLT)
If our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, then we need to see our bodies as “holy”—sacred, set apart for God’s use, designated for sacred purpose. Do you ever think of that when you look in the mirror? Do you think of your body as that which is holy? Most of us just see all the blemishes, the wrinkles, the unwanted fat…we could go on and on, couldn’t we? But when God sees our bodies, He sees that which is holy—that which He created for holy purposes! Amazing!

So the Apostle Paul is saying that we are to consider our bodies as the sacred dwelling place of the Holy Spirit—which is God. Paul goes on to say that, because of that, I have no right to pervert or misuse my body, for I am not my own master. I have been purchased by God for a price. Jesus shed His blood for the redemption of my life! Thus, the follower of Jesus Christ is given the challenge of glorifying God with his or her body.

Paul begins this section we read this morning with the interesting words, “Everything is permissible for me.” It’s in quotation marks because it was a popular saying of the day. Paul wasn’t saying that it’s true! The paraphrase of scripture called The Message puts the words of verse 12 like this—
Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims. (1 Corinthians 6:12, The Message)

We understand the concept of there being freedom in Christ Jesus. Every follower of Jesus has been set free from the sins of our past. We know what it is feel bondage to guilt and sin—and we’re set free from that. And the Christians in Paul’s day particularly rejoiced in their newfound freedom from the narrow legalism of Judaism. The Apostle Paul saw the Gospel of Jesus Christ as a liberating word and the church as a liberating community. And we believe that because we’ve experienced that! This note of freedom flows through all of Paul’s writings.

But evidently there were those in the Corinthian Church to whom Paul was writing who used their freedom to create new slaveries. The same persons who had celebrated the freedom from guilt which God’s forgiveness brought used that freedom to indulge their appetites and became slaves again—this time to their own desires.

Can I just talk honestly with you for a few moments? I’m a product of the Church of the Nazarene—it’s all I’ve really known. I know we’re not the only church doing God’s work, but it’s the family we belong to. And I love our church. It was the Church of the Nazarene that brought my grandparents and great-grandparents to faith in Christ and nurtured them in the Christian way—and my parents and then my generation benefited from that spiritual heritage. But I have to confess that if you had asked me what the Church of the Nazarene believes in when I was growing up, I would have given you the answer, “We don’t smoke; we don’t drink; we don’t dance; we don’t go to movies.” I suppose I defined it that way because that was the obvious distinction between how we were told to live our lives in contrast to what our Lutheran or Methodist classmates had been told.

I don’t remember a lot of nonsense sermons in my growing up days about burning in hell if we did this or that. My dad was my pastor my first ten years of life and I never felt he was legalistic in the sense that some were. I grew up loving Jesus, and I honestly never reacted against what others thought were legalistic restraints of the “do’s” and “don’ts.” I do remember hearing a sermon when I was a teenager when the preacher got onto a tangent and start condemning women wearing panty-hose—but I thought the guy was nuts then, and so did my friends and the adults whom I most respected.

I am glad that we are seeing the need to present the Christian life in positive terms rather than in negative ones. It’s very freeing! We probably hear a lot more in preaching today about the peace Christ gives, the joy of the burden of sin lifted, the hope found in Christ, the unbelievable grace and mercy of the Lord poured out upon our lives. I believe those things! They’re true! The Gospel is more about the love of God than it’s about our sinfulness—and that’s a wonderful thing! By God’s grace, we can stand before a holy God and be made free from the penalty and power of sin over our lives! That’s so very freeing!

But we need to remember that freedom has responsibilities and we need to understand that freedom can be abused. That’s what the Corinthians were doing—and it’s what Paul was trying to correct. And I fear that the Christian world today is so enthralled with the freedom we find in Christ that too often we neglect the responsibility that comes with that freedom. Our character is determined by how we use our freedoms. We don’t need to return to the days when we tried to earn God’s love by things we did or didn’t do, but we need to learn to let His unconditional love create in us a holy life lived in response to His love. The move from legalism to love is to be a move to responsible discipleship—giving ourselves wholeheartedly to the journey of becoming the persons God wants us to be.

Paul specifically addressed the matter of sexual immorality in this passage. As I mentioned earlier, the Corinthians delighted in saying, “Everything is permissible for me.” Their way of thinking was influenced by the Greek philosophy of Gnosticism. Gnosticism taught a “dualism” between the body and the soul. The soul was recognized as good and of God, but the body was considered bad and not of God. Some people concluded that the body needed to be punished, so they denied it practically all of its appetites—leading to asceticism and the monastic movement. But the more popular reaction was not to neglect the body but to indulge its every appetite without constraints—freedom, if you will. They concluded that what someone did with their own body had nothing to do with the soul or with one’s faith.

And that’s about where we are today, isn’t it? “It’s my body; I’ll do what I want with it.” And God responds to such nonsense, “No it’s not. It’s mine.” We’ve so focused on our freedom in Christ that we fail to recognize our responsibility to be wise stewards of what God has given to us. Sex is treated as just another appetite to be satisfied as casually as the appetite for food is met by getting a snack out of the refrigerator. That’s how Christians justify casual sex outside marriage and how Christians excuse away searching for porn on the internet—and then put on their church masks on Sundays and act like everything’s okay! But it’s not! That’s what Paul’s saying! It’s no okay!

Please understand that God is not anti-sex! Sex was His idea—don’t ever forget that! From God’s perspective, sex is holy, a gift from God to be opened in the special context of marriage. But sex outside of marriage pulls the Corinthian ploy, pretending that we can give away our bodies and not our souls. We can’t. The me-centered phrase “as long as no one gets hurt” sounds good, but the trust is that we don’t know who gets hurt. You may think it’s harmless, but sex outside of marriage is never harmless—even though it may take years for the damage to show up on the radar screen. Sex apart from God’s plan wounds the soul. Sex according to God’s plan nourishes the soul.

When we recognize our bodies as that which is holy, belonging to God, then and only then do we see the attitudes and actions of our culture relating to sex as so very wrong! Everything about the pornography business has the basic problem that it uses sex in a prostituting way. We have seen it so infiltrate the world of advertising that it seems it’s everywhere we look! Have any of you seen a recent Carl’s Jr. ad that even makes eating a fast-food salad seductive?

Paul says that we are to run from sexual sin! We are to flee from sexual immorality! “All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” That’s the context of the words, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?” We’re not only God’s tool, but He lives in us!

While Paul applied the general principle of the stewardship of our bodies to one area, it’s certainly important for us to relate that same principle more broadly in our lives today. If we are to glorify God in our bodies, then there are many more ways in which we need to apply this truth. Chances are that you’ll come up with more applications than I will mention this morning—and I bless that, knowing that my list isn’t exhaustive and recognizing that I too still have a lot to learn about what it means to be a good steward of my body. But let me suggest a few.

Our bodies need exercise, don’t they? Most of us don’t get much exercise in the course of our work day. We have to plan for it and work at it. I’d like to tell you that I enjoy doing my exercise throughout the week—but mostly, it’s just hard work! I just know I need to do it. But I will tell you that I feel better when I do.

Our bodies also need proper nutrition. We need to eat the right stuff. Most fast foods clog arteries! Much of the prepared foods purchased in grocery stores are loaded with salt and preservatives. Our lives are lived out on the run—so we excuse away a lot of unhealthy eating. We need more fruits and vegetables—something I’m still working on learning to enjoy!

And, both exercise and what we eat impacts the matter of our weight. I’ll confess that I’ve had a lifelong battle with my weight. It’s just been my lot in life. I battle it continually. But I know that when I’m overweight, it impacts my blood pressure, it impacts my energy, and it puts me at greater risk of shortening my life due to heart disease, and puts me at a greater risk of diabetes—and those are just for starters! Besides the risks—I hate how my clothes fit when I get overweight! But that’s more of a vanity issue than it is a stewardship issue!

Again, I’m not trying to impose guilt on anyone. But as followers of Jesus Christ, we need to be challenged to take seriously this matter of being good stewards of our bodies. And if you’re one who never struggles with your weight, I rejoice with you! You are blessed! But please don’t be too unkind to those of us who struggle with it because for some of us it’s one of the biggest challenges we have in life.

Let me address another stewardship of body concern: tobacco. Now more than ever, Christians have reason to stay away from tobacco in all of its forms. It isn’t cool! It’s like spinning a roulette wheel with your life. If you smoke, let me encourage you to ask the Lord to help you stop. Quit excusing it away. Get the help you need. I heard a presentation by someone with the American Heart Association this week and she said that the first thing you can do proactively to prevent heart disease or risk of a stroke is to stop smoking now. She also added not to subject yourself to secondhand smoke.

Have you seen the new wave of anti-Meth ads that have come our recently. I doubt I need to convince you that illegal drugs and the misuse of prescriptive drugs destroy lives. Stay away from them. Be a good steward of the body God has given you. The trap of drugs is the thinking that you’ll try it just once. That’s exactly how every drug addict got started. Get help if you need it. Let us know so that we can pray for you and encourage you and help you in every way we can.

We don’t talk much about it, but we need to acknowledge that alcohol has destroyed lots of bodies and lots of lives. I don’t believe that you’re necessarily going to burn in hell if you take a drink of alcohol, but I think the risks far outweigh the benefits. We talked earlier about Christian freedom—and I rejoice in it. But I’ve also come to see that part of maturing in our Christian walk is moving from the question, “So what’s wrong with it” to the better question, “Does this have more potential for blessing or for bringing harm into my life and the lives of others?” I believe that the Church of the Nazarene’s stand on total abstinence from alcohol has more validity now than ever. The best way to guarantee alcohol not being a problem in your life is to not allow it a place in your life. Most of us don’t have quite as much discipline as we think we do. Besides that, I have trouble enough keeping my brain clear without dulling it by alcohol. And it really concerns me when I see parents and grandparents becoming casual about drinking, because I think we’re sending a dangerous message to those who watch our lives the closest. God’s called us to be wise stewards of our bodies.

Here’s an application of the passage that might seem more palatable to you: give your body rest. It’s part of being a good steward of it. God didn’t design your body to go 24/7. He created night for a reason. Build in times of rest and relaxation.

And let me meddle a little bit more. Find a doctor you can trust and respect—and then take his/her advise seriously. Your medical doctor becomes your coach for taking good care of your body. If your doctor says you really need to lay off the salt—then lay off the salt! If your doctor feels you need to be taking a certain medication, then take it! Don’t blow off the advice of a professional. If you don’t trust your doctor, find one you do trust—but then listen and heed what they tell you! (Do you like that, Dr. Fender?!)

The Apostle Paul tells us to “flee” from sexual immorality. We need to apply that same thought to anything that harms our bodies. Some of us need to “flee” the dessert tables! Some of us need to flee the couch and the TV and get out and take a long, brisk walk! Some of us need to flee the allure of alcohol and other drugs. You get the idea!

See your body as a gift from God—holy, sacred, a treasure in the eyes of the Creator. Recognize that it’s part of what He’s entrusted to you as a steward. Take care of it. Don’t be careless with it. Don’t keep excusing away bad habits. Don’t let your sense of spiritual freedom consume your passionate desire to be wholly devoted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. May God help you and me to be faithful stewards of the bodies He’s given to us.