Who Are We? Body

Scripture Reading

Please turn over with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, we'll continue on in our topical series on who are we? Who are we? Last time we talked about the creator-creature distinction. That it is God who made us and we are his. We talked about who we are, made in the image of God. Well, over the next two weeks, we're going to talk about who we are, body and soul. So this morning we'll be exploring the idea of who we are being embodied people. Let's turn to God's word, 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures, and that he was seen by Cephas, then by the 12. After that, he was seen by over 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that, he was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all, he was seen by me also as one born out of due time. for I am the least of all the apostles, who am I, who am but, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was in me. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach, And so you believed.

Now if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty, and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ, whom he did not raise up, if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile. You are still in your sins. Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.

But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die so, even so in Christ all shall be made alive, but each one in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at his coming.

When he comes, when comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom of God, the Father, when he puts an end to all rule and authority and power, For he must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For he has put all things under his feet. But when he says all things are put under him, it is evident that he who put all things under him is accepted. Now when all things are made subject to him, then the Son himself will also be subject to him, who put all things under him, that God may be all in all. Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if they do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead?

And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? I affirm by the boasting in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.

Do not be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. Awake to righteousness and do not sin. For some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. But someone will say, how are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere gain, perhaps wheat, or some other grain, but God gives it a body as he pleases, and to each seed its own body.

All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another kind of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies, but the glory of the celestial one and the glory of the terrestrial one is another. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars. For one star differs from another star in glory.

So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

And so it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterwards, the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust. The second man, is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust. And as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall bear the image of the heavenly man.

Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. 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 shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Thus ends this portion of the reading of God's word. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.

Prayer for Illumination

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We pray that your Holy Spirit might have attended to the reading of it and that you would not let it return void. Father, we pray where we have frailties in our flesh, you would strengthen us. Where we have wandered in our minds into unbiblical thought patterns and paths, Lord, we pray that you would teach us, correct us, rebuke us, and train us. Where our lives are out of conformity with who you have created us to be, we pray that you would sanctify us, mold us, change us into who you are making us to be. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Last time we got together and we looked broadly at what does it mean to be made in the image of God.

Sermon

This morning I'd like to zoom in specifically at our human identity, specifically our body. Each one of you has a body. and a soul. You are what theologians call a psychosomatic union. You are a body-soul union. I know each of you have a body, because I'm looking at you with my own eyeballs. I think it's an undisputable fact. Each one of us has a body. But where'd that come from? Why do you exist? What are you supposed to do with your body? Well, first, we must recognize that the body was created by God. When God created man in Genesis chapter 1, he said, let us make man in our image. God made us, formed us. And as we saw in Genesis chapter 2, Genesis chapter 1 is this beautiful picture of God making the heavens and the earth.

He makes the heavens, and then he puts the lights in the heavens. He makes the earth, and then he fills the earth. But in the very last day, on day 6, he made man. But chapter 2 slows down on that creation of man. And in the Hebrew, when God made man, it's almost like God's putting together clay. The Hebrew word for man is adam. The Hebrew word for dirt, for earth, is adam.

He was made out of the dirt. God put him together out of the stuff of this world. And he breathed into him the breath of life. And in this image, we see that it's not just man who is created by God, as in just males, but he also created females. Male and female, he created man. He made the sexes. He gave them their bodies. He made them in their proportions. God relates to us. He created us to think. He created us to mirror Him in righteousness and holiness. He created us with an innate dignity.

No other thing in creation is said to be made in the image of God. We may love our dogs, but your dog, although some people treat their dogs like kids, your dogs will never be your real children. They were never made in the image of God. They may be amazing creatures, but they were not made in the image of God. Dolphins have an incredible ability of thinking and of communicating and of doing amazing things, but they were not made in the image of God. Only humans were made in the image of God with dominion relationship, morality, and knowledge.

And the body is essential to all of those things. The body is essential to us being in the image of God, specifically with the dominion mandate. We talked about that last time in Genesis 1, verse 28, when God told them to fill the earth and subdue it. People were made to multiply, but that was also given to the animals. Did you notice that in Genesis chapter one? God told the animals to multiply, but he didn't tell the animals to subdue the earth, to cultivate the garden, to care for his created world. And our bodies are necessary for that. People cannot multiply if all we are is souls.

And I need to say this to you. I know you might think, well, that's kind of silly, right? But there have been cults and heretics in church history who have taught that you are nothing more than your soul. Your body doesn't matter. Well, obviously our bodies mattered a great deal to the Lord because he gave us tasks that could only be accomplished in the body. Souls don't re-multiply. People do. With bodies.

Now, again, the twisted thing of our culture is often the materialists who will say, well, you are nothing more than that. People who reject any type of purpose or telos in your life, their whole point is that, no, you were made out of the evolutionary muck of the ancient history, and you evolved by a great deal of genetic mutations and chance, and your whole purpose in life is for nothing more than you to be able to pass on your genes and procreate. That's a materialist model of why you have a body. You have a body because you need to have a body. And why do you have a body? Because you need to pass on and make more bodies. And so they can make more bodies.

And that's your entire purpose. Freud fit this into his whole twisted psychology. And that even all your thinking is nothing more than your repressed sexual desires for procreation. That's not why the Lord gave us the command to multiply. It was for his glory.

It was to subdue the earth, to work it, to cultivate it. Adam and Eve, we get this picture of Adam and Eve in the garden and the different rivers that go out from the Garden of Eden. God didn't ever give them the garden to sit around like a bunch of Greeks laying around and eating grapes. We think of them just lounging around in the garden. No, he gave them a job to do to cultivate the land. They needed to go down where the good gold was and make jewelry. They needed to go to the garden and they needed to cultivate it and make it beautiful.

And I gotta tell you, the only way you could do that if you get some dirt underneath your fingernails, God knew that they were going to have work to do. And just so we all understand that work that God gave to do, was before sin ever even entered the world.

At a shepherding visit not too long ago, the elders heard a boy who said, I don't like school. Why? Because it's work. Work isn't bad. God's given us work to do. But again, in our hearts, we often twist this, right? And sometimes we even make work the purpose of our lives, forgetting that the work is meant to bring glory to God. Your job is not your identity.

But you certainly do need a body to do that work. When the psalmist looks up at the skies in Psalm 8 and he sees the stars, He recognizes both his frailty, what is man so frail and weak that you should be mindful of him? And yet he also recognizes at the end of that Psalm that God has placed him, crowned him with glory above all the other creatures. We glorify God with our bodies through our labor, through our speech, through our art, through our relationships, in your parenting, in your grandparenting, Your whole lives are built around you, body and soul, worshiping God, ringing God glory. Because you're not just a soul, but you are soul, body, union.

That's what we read in Genesis 2.7. God formed man from the dust. He breathed into him and he became a living being. Humans are not souls trapped in their bodies, nor are you a body with your soul trapped in you. You're a body-soul union. You're a whole person.

We can distinguish our body from our soul because we know that there's something in us And at times it's called different things in the body, in the scripture. Sometimes it's referred to as our spirit. Sometimes it's referred to as our soul. Sometimes it's referred to as our heart. But the point is we know that there's something in us more than just our bodies.

And that's what we're gonna talk about next week. So I'm not gonna beat this point right now. But my point in this is you are an indivisible union. Probably the only time we ever use that word indivisible is in the Pledge of Allegiance, right? It means you're not able to divide it up, right?

We can distinguish. We're able to say, okay, there's some part of me that's not physical, right? There's thoughts and there's emotions and there's worship and there's affections and those aren't necessarily physical. Sometimes they manifest and they hit me. And again, we're gonna talk about this next week. But yeah, we're also not, We also are physical. We have a soul. We have a body. And both of them are good. Your body is valuable. Your body, let me say this very carefully, your body is not inherently sinful. Your body is not inherently sinful. Genesis chapter one, verse 31, then God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good.

When God formed our parents, Adam and Eve, he declared that they were very good, body and soul. They were good. It wasn't like he looked at their souls and said, well, that part of them is good, but I know that body part is really gonna get them in trouble later. Nor did he say, well, I think their body's pretty good, but man, their souls are gonna be real messed up. No, they are good. Not just good, very good. Your body is important.

Jesus confirmed this even in his ministry. How often do we find in the Gospels when Jesus is going around, did he look at people and just go, oh, I feel sorry for you, you poor soul? No. No, he fed the hungry. He healed the lame. He rose Lazarus up again from the dead. How many times did he give the blind their sight? Or the leper their health? Jesus cared for the body. This is one reason why it's been referred to Jesus calling him the great physician. Because he cared for people, body and soul. He touched people. He restored their bodies. Jesus cared about the body, not just the soul.

James even tells us that if we're just those who care about people's souls, and they come to us hungry or thirsty or tired, and we just say, oh, the Lord be with you, go in peace, but we don't actually give them what they need, what good is your religion? You've not actually cared for them physically.

And what did Jesus say? When he comes and there's the judgment day, His disciples asked him, when did we see you tired and give you some place to sleep? When did we see you thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you hungry and give you something to eat?

Those are physical blessings, those are physical things. See, God cares about the body. God cares about how we express our religion towards other people's bodies. Jesus cared for the body and so ought we. And our bodies should be cared for. I always think it's interesting, the common sense argument that Paul has when he's instructing husbands in the book of Ephesians. He's telling husbands to love their wives as they love themselves, but how he couches it is interesting. Ephesians 5, 29. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. The illustration that God chooses to use for us husbands to love our wives is you take a shower, right?

When you're hurting, you do something about it, you get a cut, you put an ointment on it. When you're hungry, you eat. When you're tired, you sleep. You don't hate your body, but you take care of your body. Your wife is part of your body. Take care of your wife, right? It's the common sense argument that we know inherently our bodies are a value. We take care of them. We go to the doctor. At least we should. And God says that's how you take care of your bride, because that's how the Lord takes care of the church.

Paul, even when he's writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4.8, For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. Paul's telling Timothy, right, it's okay to bodily work out a little bit, go to the gym a little bit. That's fine, that's good for you, but don't turn into those who are just going to the gymnasium constantly. Don't go worshiping the body, but it is of some profit. This one hits me smack dab in the face.

Part of our body is, and part of our humility is also recognizing we need sleep. I remember there was a sister in the church one time. We used to have people babysit our kids when we would go photograph weddings. And so we wouldn't get home until 10, 30, 11, 11, 30 at night. It'd be really late when we got home. And there was one night we were saying goodnight to the babysitter. And I said, well, I've still got to stay up a little bit. And this person knew our family really well.

And see, we had told the babysitters that night we would sing to our children Psalm 127. And that was kind of their goodnight song. For the Lord gives his loved one sleep is one of the stanzas in that psalm. And this wonderful church woman says, you know, Brian, I think you sing that to your kids every night, but I'm not sure if you actually believe that.

God gives you sleep. He knows you need sleep. It's a blessing. There are people who fight for sleep. It's hard to get sleep, and they wish they could get sleep. Our body is important. God gives us good gifts, even sleep. And so it's not, taking care of our body that's sinful. In our culture, there is a type of self-care that is selfish, that is about, I don't care about anybody else, but I'm gonna take care of me.

Now, there is a time that which we have to say, I'm going to put away sleep for a period of time because I need to work for someone. There's something important to do. There is a time in which we may need to say, I am more than just my body, and so no, I'm not going to eat this meal because I need to fast and pray. There is a time in which we have to put away our physical desires because we need to give to somebody else who has need. But it does not mean that we don't take care of our bodies. And I think probably the most important example of how important our bodies is, is the incarnation of Jesus Christ himself.

If Jesus could just redeem us, and he could just come as a spirit and he could redeem us, why didn't he just do that? Why was it necessary for Jesus to take on human flesh? By the way, this is the whole reason why the Apostle John starts his first epistle saying, that which we have seen, that which we have heard, that which we have felt, speaking of Jesus, He even says in 1 John chapter four that if anybody denies that Jesus came in the flesh, let him be anathema, let him be accursed. It is that important that Jesus actually came in the flesh, but the question is why?

Because he needed to be like us in every way, yet without sin. Jesus had a physical body and did not make him sinful. Jesus had a physical body and that did not make him innately sinful. No, he was tested, tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

Maybe even more importantly, to show us the importance of the body, Jesus physically rose again from the dead. He didn't just let his body rot in a tomb, but he rose again from the dead. The incarnation of Jesus Christ and his resurrection affirms the permanent dignity of our bodies. This is something I don't understand physically because Jesus's body has similar attributes and different qualities than ours. We're gonna talk about this when we get to the resurrection in a few sermons. But Jesus has a body right now. Jesus has a body forever. When he took upon himself a body, and then he rose again from the dead with that same self body, he now has that flesh forever. Because the body was designed, created for God.

I'm gonna move fast here. I'm gonna try to get through the rest of this in the time allotted. So let's look at the body for God, 1 Corinthians 6, verses 13 through 20. 1 Corinthians 6, beginning at verse 13. Foods for the stomach, and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For the two, he says, shall become one flesh, but he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.

Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."

The human body was made for God, not for self. And Christian ethics, when we talk about the body, are never abstract. How we think of the value of the body and how we think about how we live with our bodies is not abstract, but it's lived out in sexual purity, in discipline, in stewardship of health, and in physical presence at the worship service. We gather together physically, not forsaking the assembly of the saints. That's why God calls the church the body of Christ.

All people, whether Christian or non-Christian, are accountable to God for how they treat their body, whether for his glory or for sin. Romans 2, verse 15, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves, their thoughts accusing or also excusing them. Next chapter 17 verse 31, because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained, he has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead. Jesus Christ is going to come again and judge the living and the dead. He will do it. And no one will be able to say, God, I didn't know that my body was for some other purpose.

No, Romans chapter one says, that God displays, and people know that we are created beings, and that he has all divine right and power, and that our whole lives are meant to glorify him, and yet we twist that and turn it. And yet you Christians are uniquely enabled to glorify God with your bodies.

Again, 1 Corinthians 6, or sorry, no, Romans 6, verses 12 through 13. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey its lust. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. Christian, you are not a slave to sin, but you, being indwelt by the power of the Holy Spirit, can glorify God with your bodies, and how you eat, and how you sleep, and how you speak, and how you serve.

Galatians chapter five, verses 16 and 17, very well-known words to us. I say, then walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. You have the Spirit. You can resist bodily sin because the Spirit indwells you.

Holiness does not just involve our souls, but it involves our whole bodies. God has redeemed you, not just your soul. Often when I think of God has redeemed you by the price more precious than gold or silver, but with the blood of his own Son, Jesus Christ, I often think of that redeeming being just my soul, but no. No, again 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought, redeemed, at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit. Do you think of your body as not your own but God's?

I often want to think of my body as my possession. I do with my body what I want, when I want. That's why I eat so much candy, right? Because I want to fulfill my selfish desires. Not thinking about, hold on, is this what God has made me to do? Is what I put in my body or how I express myself with my body glorifying to God?

In Romans chapter eight, verse 23, the Lord tells us, But we also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, grown within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our bodies. We know that He has redeemed our bodies, and yet you also know that your body is failing, and the flesh is strong, but the Spirit is weak. But Christ redeemed you. He redeemed you body and soul. Your body's not a piece of Tupperware or a paper plate to get thrown away later. Your body is a vessel of glory.

But we all know that there's a difficulty in our lives because Adam and Eve did not stay in the original righteousness in which they were created in Genesis chapter two. But there's a fall. And with the fall comes repercussions of sin. Paul expresses this in Romans chapter seven. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells. For to will is present with me, but how I perform what is good I do not find.

He says. He says there's almost like two laws, right? The law of God in him, that he knows what he should do, and yet he's got this law of the flesh. Actually, there's this interesting thing in Greek that I was wrestling with as I was preparing for this. There are two terms for what's translated body in Greek. One is soma. And soma just typically means body, right? Who you are, flesh and blood.

But there's another term, sarx. And sarx can be used for your body, right? John 1, verse 14 speaks of Jesus coming in the flesh, sarx. But Paul uses sarx in a way, flesh, in a way that's not just talking about our physical body, but that we as people are often dominated by sinful passions.

So the problem isn't just that our bodies, it's not that our bodies, our flesh is inherently sinful. That's what the Gnostics thought. They're ancient heretics that thought the spiritual is all good, but the physical, man, that's evil. And so they would actually go so far as recreate creation stories and say, no, no, no, it was a lowercase G God who created the physical stuff, but the big G God, he created all the spiritual stuff, right? And that's bogus, it's hogwash.

But sometimes I think we feel that way when we think of the spiritual as good and the body as bad. But I think that's because we wrestle with the flesh. We wrestle with the sinful desires, the lusts of the flesh. the desires that come with our fallen nature. That's what Paul says in Galatians chapter five, starting at verse 19. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication. uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousy, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresy, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Did you notice there's a difficulty with that? Some of those things of the flesh are inward, and some of them are outward. All of them go both ways, inward and outward. The question is their manifestation.

This is what Jesus was getting at when he said that, yeah, there's a way in which you can commit actual adultery, right? You can go and you can join yourself to the flesh of another person who is not your spouse, and that is just straight up adultery. You have heard it said unto you, you shall not commit adultery. But I say unto you, that if you look lustfully after a woman with your eyes, you've already committed adultery in your heart.

It's the flesh, it's the heart, that's the problem there too. But the thing is, it does work itself out. Unless somehow you are constrained, and I know many people like this, as I've talked to old men, who will make quips and jokes about, well, I'm able to look from the menu, I just can't order. And they're trying to justify and laugh away their lust.

The only thing that's restraining them is either God's mercy to them or the shame that would come with actually committing the sin that they actually desire in their hearts. And Jesus says that desire is just as bad as the sin itself. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6-9, or in 1 Corinthians 6-9-11, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. How many of those things are done in the body, in the flesh? extortion, desiring to get something else from somebody else. How many of those were tied to this idea of self-gratification?

Many of these are only possibly done by the body. We sin because we're fleshly people. We sin because we're body and soul. And part of our soul, part of our flesh is fallen, loving this world and twisting even the good things that God's created in this world and wanting to serve those or have those things serve us rather than using them for God's glory.

But I wanna read to you. I stopped at verse 10, I wanna read to you verse 11. Because see, 1 Corinthians chapter six could make you just weep. If you just read any of those, of those who will not inherit the kingdom of God, and you might say, well, hope is there for me.

Verse 11, and such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified. but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Maybe some of you have been struggling with these sins of the flesh, struggling with the temptations towards these things, struggling with the outward performance of these things, struggling with knowing I should not be doing these things and the things I don't want to do, yet I still do and I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Oh, wretched man that I am, who could possibly save me from this bondage to my flesh? Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ, who was tempted in every way with those and yet did not sin. He redeemed you body and soul on that cross. So you might be embodied for God's glory.

We know in this life, It's one of those hard things when we come to prayer meetings and as we talk to other Christians, we hear about the difficult things going on in people's physical environments. We hear about the aches and the pains, the fear of cancer, and the prognosis of cancer, and the fear of the cancer returning. We hear of the pain that people suffer. when they don't have enough food, when they don't have security in their lives, when they don't have the funds they need to live out basic functions, paying their rent, having transportation. It breaks our hearts because we know that all creation is groaning for the day of redemption.

Because see, someday this battle with the flesh will end. Someday who we were created to be will come. And that's what we were reading about in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. And so is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown in a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body.

Do you see your body someday Unless the Lord returns before this, you body will most likely end up someplace like out here in the North churchyard, where there are dozens upon dozens of dozens of saints who bodies are resting in the grave, awaiting the day of resurrection.

Their souls have been made immediately perfect and have gone into God's glory, but that's not the normal state They long for the day of resurrection, and so do we, when the bodies that have been sown will raise up in immortality. Paul affirms this continuity and this transformation where our physical bodies are sown in dishonor. They go down like a seed into the ground to decay and die, but when they rise again from the ground, they will be risen in glory. They are sown in weakness, but they are raised in power. Our natural bodies will be sown into the ground, but we raise a spiritual body.

And when Paul says a spiritual body, he's not saying a ghostly body. Not an immaterial body, but a body made perfect, ruled by the Spirit and dwelling in us. Unable to sin. full citizens having their work done complete by Christ. Philippians 3, for our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly await for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body and make it conform to his glorious body according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things to himself. So what is the spiritual body?

Well, we'll talk about that in a later sermon. But the body will be important. Your body today is important. Your body is important to God. He knits you together in your mother's womb. He counts every hair on your head. He gives you your daily bread. He counts the number of your days. He knows you, body and soul. His thoughts about you are innumerable.

The question is, will you glorify Him with your body? Do you say of Him, Lord, Lord, Master, Master? And yet, when you use your tongue, do you say whatever you want? Do you call him Lord who purchased your body at a price and then refused to exercise the fruit of the spirit with self-control when you pick up your fork? Do you call him Lord, Lord? And yet the one who has washed you in the blood of his son, do you make yourself filthy with sexual immorality?

Closing Prayer

May it never be. May we live consistently both soul and body for his glory. For whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, may we do so under the glory of God. Christian, he has redeemed you soul and body. Therefore glorify him with your bodies. Let's pray. God, we pray that we would offer up to you our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to you.

Lord, please forgive us, for we are sinful people. Our brains think wrong. Our stomachs often rule us. Our tongues get in front of us lighting fires that can never be put out. Lord, you know how often we fail. that we sin, God, please cleanse us from our sin by the blood of your Son. And Lord, we pray that your Spirit would indeed be so working powerfully in us that you would conform us to the likeness and image of your Son. Give us hope, Lord, and teach us how we might glorify you. In Jesus' name, amen.