God Cares About Your Body

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Sam Allberry
So why is the gospel good news for your body? I’m from the UK, as I think is probably apparent. And I the last few years, I’ve been back and forth between the US and the UK and I began to sort of mentally do some comparing. And there are some things I will I will admit America does better than England, in just a few in no particular order lemonade. Like if you go to England and order lemonade, it’s it’s something quite different to what you drink here. Customer service, you actually have customer service here, we don’t even know what that is in the UK. Positivity generally, you were kind of can do types we’re sort of in England were very cynical. And you know, virtually all kinds of food is probably better here than than in the UK. However, if I may, as as a friendly visitor to your nation, there are some things the UK does better than America. BBC News, okay. Country pubs. If you don’t know what one of those is, then come and have a word afterwards. Chocolate. Okay, in the UK, chocolate doesn’t taste of wax. So, if I’m ever giving up chocolate for Lent, I still eat Hershey’s because it doesn’t count. And whatever else Hershey’s is it isn’t chocolate. But here’s one of the things I really love in the UK that you guys don’t have here. And that is Boxing Day. Okay, in the UK, December the 26th is a public holiday. It’s called Boxing Day. I think it’s called that because you would have historically boxed up gifts for the poor and that kind of thing. But it’s kind of come to be the day after Christmas where you can kind of just recover a bit from all kinds of craziness of Christmas. And the reason I love boxing day, it’s one of my favorite days of the year is because Christmas is normally hectic in the UK, we tend to have church on Christmas Day. So you’ve got that in the morning, you’ve got seeing everyone you’ve ever been related to as well at various points during the day, there’s not much time to actually be still and to think and so boxing day for me is the day I tend to do most of my reflecting on Christmas. And there is no greater compliment that you can pay the human body than that the Word became flesh. And the word remained flesh. There is still at the right hand of the father right now. A human body, the Lord Jesus Christ, there’s no greater prospect for the human body than the future. Jesus has one for it by becoming flesh. So if you take nothing else out of this session, take this God is not just interested in your soul. He’s not just interested in extracting from you some spiritual aspects of who you are and then running with that for eternity. Now, God’s eternal plan for your life includes your physicality. It includes your body. Just one example of this in Romans, chapter eight, Paul was talking about creation, groaning and waiting. And he says in Romans eight verse 23, and not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, grown inwardly as we eagerly wait eagerly for adoption as sons the redemption of our boy priests.

Sam Allberry
So Paul is saying we’ve received the first fruits of the Spirit, we’ve already been given new life in the Holy Spirit. We already have, if I can put it in these these terms, we already have new creation software. But it’s running on old creation hardware. And so we grown. And we’re not grinding because we’re waiting to be rid of these wretched bodies, we’re groaning because we’re waiting for the redemption of our bodies. that the gospel is not there to help you escape your body. As if it’s a bad thing, and you just need to be free of the wretched physicality, and then you can kind of float off into something else. Nor is the gospel trying to switch out your body for a completely different one. Now, the Gospel talks about our bodies being redeemed. That the future adoption We await in all its completion includes the redemption of our bodies. So the gospel is good news for your body. You can, you can leave now, if you if you would like to, we’re going to unpack a little bit more of that for the rest of this session. So here, here are five things. The Bible shows us about our bodies and why therefore the gospel is good news for our bodies. Let me just tell you what the five things are and then we’ll go through them. Your body is not accidental. Your body is not incidental. Your body is not straightforward. Your body is not yours. And your body is not finished. So firstly, your body is not accidental. Let me read some well known words from Psalm 139. You’ll have heard these words you may have seen them embroidered on various things around your home. It’s one of those kinds of passages. Psalm 139 Verse 13. Day David is writing he’s he’s praying as he writes, he’s praying to God and He says, For you formed my inward parts that most of us are not very familiar with him with parts and there’s something goes wrong with him with parts and then we would rather not have known much about them, but God is the one who formed us. David says, You formed my inward parts you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. David says in the next verse, I praise you. Why? For I am fearfully and wonderfully made. David is right in that in the same reality that we live in David is not somehow existing before the fall and writing this about his body before the fall. David is saying this of his own fallen self, his own broken self. He can still say of his own physicality. I praise you God because I’m fearfully and wonderfully made.

Sam Allberry
You have been made with great care and attention. God has made by now several billion of these human things. But we have not been mass produced. Some years ago, I went to a chocolate factory in the UK, why not? Right and if there’s good chocolate to be had let’s go and go to the source of all the goodness and it was like being at the end of a rainbow is just amazing. And they would just give you chocolate throughout the day just to just to keep taking but it was amazing. Just seeing these massive kind of machine processes conveyor belts, all the rest of it and just these hundreds and hundreds of chocolate goodies pouring off these these factory contraptions. We have not been mass produced. We’ve not just kind of slid off a production line. We have been if I can put it in these terms individually handcrafted. It doesn’t mean we’re perfect. But we have been fearfully and wonderfully made. David says you knitted me together in my mother’s room. I’ve never knitted a stitch in my life that I’ve watched people knitting and every single stitch is handcrafted. God has been especially attentive to the creation of each one of us. So you are not accidental your body is not the product of time and Chance, your body did not cough itself up into existence. There’s nothing random about your body some of us may not have been planned by our parents.

Sam Allberry
But we have been planned by God. He meant to make you he meant for you to be here. Some of us will despise our bodies. Some of us may feel ashamed because of our bodies. But David sees the creativeness of our bodies as a reason to praise God. And I pray that with the help of the Holy Spirit, the next time you look at yourself in the mirror, you can say to yourself, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. And therefore, I will praise God. For some of us, that will be hard. But it’s the right thing to do. David says he has been fearfully and wonderfully made. So we are not accidental. Secondly, we’re not incidental. It’s easy to think today well, that the real me is the kind of inner self that I feel myself to be. That’s where the real action is. The body is just a lump of flesh I happen to be connected to. It’s not, in and of itself significance to my identity, it is simply the blank canvas on which I paint, my real identity often literally paint. My real identity is not itself determinative or part of that identity. But the Bible gives us a very different perspective, because God has planned for us to be here because we have been fearfully and wonderfully made, our bodies are not insignificant. It isn’t just an arbitrary lump of matter. It’s not just that you have a body you are a body. So think about the creation of Adam in Genesis two. If you’re familiar with that account, God takes some of the the soul of the earthly forms and into the body of Adam and then breathes life into it what God doesn’t do. God does not make a soul called Adam. And then look for something physical to put that soul into. As if our body is just a kind of convenient piece of Tupperware. No, God makes flesh and then animates that flesh by breathing life into it. And so we are not trapped souls that have been shoved into some bit of flesh wherever was convenient to shove us now. We are animated flesh. And therefore our bodies are not incidental to who we are. So this means two things, Francis means the body is not everything. And it means the body is not nothing. The body is not everything. It’s not all that there is to you. It’s not the sum totality of your identity. In First Samuel chapter 16, you may recall that Samuel is is has been directed by the Lord to Jesse’s family to find out who the next king is going to be in the Jesse’s sons begin to appear in and Samuel is going bad. These guys just looked like they were at a central casting for the role of King. Okay, they just look kinky. They’re the kind of people who want to put a crown on the head of and kind of have leading you. They’re impressive. They’ve got that kind of magisterial sense to them. And the answer keeps coming back. No, not this one. Not him, not him. And in the end, as we know if you’re familiar with the with the account, it turns out to be the one no one was expecting David didn’t even bother to bring David in for the audition, because he just assumed wasn’t going to be David. We’ll just leave him out in the fields. But David turns up, that is going to be the one and God says to Samuel in First Samuel 16, verse seven, the Lord does not look at things man looks at. Man looks at outward appearance. But the Lord looks at the heart. Man looks at outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Now we know that we know that there’s more to someone than just the kind of immediate thing that we physically see, we know that there’s there’s more to people than that. But it still tends to be our default setting, we size people up on first impressions, mainly by how they look. We still make a lot of outward appearance, we still do most of our assessing and evaluating people based on their outward appearance. The Lord looks at the heart.

Sam Allberry
The Lord sees not just what is on the surface, but he sees what is underneath he sees into us. He sees what is hidden from other people. If we only look at the body, we have a very limited and incomplete picture of somebody else. So we don’t look at one another in the way the Lord does. We’re very surface level, in our appreciation of one another, God looks and assesses us more, more thoroughly. So the body is not everything. And there’s parts of our culture that kind of want to make it everything you are your image, you are your physical image, that is where your value or otherwise lies in this world. Now the Lord sees beyond that. So the body is not everything, but the body is not nothing either. To say, well, there’s more to me than my body is not the same thing as saying my body doesn’t matter. We cannot properly define who we are without reference in some measure to our bodies. It cannot be the case that the real deepest essence of who you are is independent of your flesh. So our culture tends to, I think, get this very much mistaken in some ways that our culture says your body doesn’t define you at all. It’s just, it is just random matter. And you can do with it whatever you want to make it into the kind of person you really believe yourself to be. 10 years ago, the movie Avatar came out, there’s a whole bunch of other ones heading our way at some point. The whole premise behind a movie like Avatar is that you can inhabit an entirely different body. And it won’t affect your personal sense of identity won’t affect who you are. It’s just like a costume you can switch it out. And for many people, that is, that is the body it is just a costume. And if I don’t like the way this costume is the night, I just change it for a different costume. Another message we often get from our culture around us is that what you do with your body doesn’t affect you because it’s not the real you. One of the kind of cliched things that sometimes gets said if if a if a man has been caught, say having an affair. You might hear the line. It didn’t mean anything. It was just physical. The Bible says it means something because it was physical. Because you are not separate from your flesh. So what you are doing with your body you are doing.

Sam Allberry
And similarly, if I may touch a very delicate subject, what is done to your body is not just done to your property. But it’s done to you. Which is why if we are physically assaulted, if we’re sexually assaulted, it’s wide affects us so very profoundly because we ourselves are being violated. It’s not just well, this happened to my body, this happened to me. Our body is not incidental. So it’s not an accident. It’s not incidental. Thirdly, your body is not straightforward. And this is probably the one you know the most about already. Paul tells us in Romans chapter eight that all of creation has been subjected to frustration. It’s been put out of joint it doesn’t work properly. And our bodies are part of that physical creation. They too, have been subjected to frustration. They don’t work in a way that they were originally intended to. They’re broken Paul kind of explained something of why this is in Romans chapter eight. Let me read to you a bit of that text. Romans eight, verse 20, For the creation was subjected to futility. Not willingly this wasn’t something creation invited for itself. Not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it. God has subjected creation to futility. But he has done so we’re told in hope. God has a positive purpose for why he’s allowed creation to be subjected to, to futility, in hopes that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption, and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. In other words, creation has been subjected to futility, so that he can look forward to the day when it will be released, along with us. In other words, the reason God is subject to creation to frustration, is to show us creation doesn’t work properly, because we don’t work properly. Creation is out of joint precisely because our relationship with God as a race is out of joints. We don’t relate to God in the way that we were originally intended to. And a kind of massive visual aid to that is creation now doesn’t relate in a way it was originally intended to say our bodies are broken as a consequence, and as a demonstration of the fact that our relationship with God is broken. At a species level, does that make sense? That doesn’t mean that one person’s own particular experience of bodily brokenness and sickness and suffering is a sign of that person’s particular sin. Jesus warns us not to make that connection. Now, the relationship is far more generalized. The fact that any of us suffer is a sign that none of us is naturally on our own right with God, that we as a species are not right with God. And we see examples of that brokenness all around us, we think of infirmity and sickness. If we were just to do a survey of the people just in this room right now, I’m just going to quickly do this. Put your hand up. Have you taken any medication today for any reason whatsoever? Okay, that’s quite a lot of us. Thank you doing that at home as well. We saw your hands go up as well. It’s so normalized, we don’t notice how unwell we all are. We all need help just to kind of physically get through the day sometimes. We live in a world where people get sick, and some people stay sick. We live in a world of infirmity. And the Bible makes sense of that. For us. We’re broken. creation has been subjected to frustration, or we think of shame that comes because of our body. Some of us are ashamed of what our bodies look like. Both among men and women. Experiences of feeling unhappy with your body have gone up enormously over the last few years.

Sam Allberry
I’ve got a couple of statistics from 2014. These are just for women. But the same trend is very much apparent among men as well. In 2014 80% of women said looking in the mirror made them feel bad. And I promise you this is an issue for men as well. The numbers have been trending in an upward direction. One factor people think is probably behind that is global internet type things mean that we are we’re exposed to standards of beauty that are being put before us that are actually entirely unrealistic. We’re given images of beauty that actually may not really be real at all their Photoshop computer generally, no, it’s not actually how a real person actually looks. But that is becoming the standard of beauty, in which case, all of us, all of us are feeling uglier. As a consequence, I was talking to a guy just recently who told me about a long term eating disorder that he’s been wrestling with. And he was made to feel shame early in life for being a bit overweight. And so it’s been kind of drilled into his deepest sense of consciousness, that he has to be thin to avoid shame.

Sam Allberry
Some of us don’t necessarily feel shame because of how we look, we might feel shame because of sin. Maybe it’s what we’ve done with our bodies that makes us feel ashamed of them. Or maybe it’s what’s been done to our bodies that makes us feel ashamed of them. One of the sad consequences of something like sexual assault is that very often it’s, it’s the victim who feels the shame and not the perpetrator.

Sam Allberry
Some of us experience the brokenness of our body in a very different way, which is by idolizing it. And thinking actually, our body is going to be the thing that that redeems us and gets us through all the problems of life. And the Bible has many warnings against vanity. So here’s just a couple. Proverbs 31 Verse 30, charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting.

Sam Allberry
I remember, every now and then you’ll sort of come across someone on Facebook or something who you haven’t seen for years and years, I remember chancing upon a guy who was a really good friend of mine at high school, and he was probably the best looking person I’ve ever known in real life. And I just have to see him on Facebook or something like that. And I thought, oh, yeah, he’s Yeah, Proverbs 3130 Is is true beauty is fleeting. Even if you manage to get the right look, it’s hard to keep it. We age. I’m at the I’m sorry, you don’t need to know this. But I just bought one of those nose hair trimmer things. It’s boring. It’s made by the same people I think make lawn mowers. But I’m like, There’s hair coming in all kinds of places. We don’t want to have hair right now. We age we have accidents. We get ill our looks are very insecure. So we mustn’t even idolize our bodies. The Bible also gives us many examples of how someone being exceptionally attractive actually creates lots of problems for them. Another form of bodily brokenness we’re particularly conscious of in this kind of time and cultural moment is is gender dysphoria. The word dysphoria is the kind of opposite of euphoria. Euphoria is you’re experiencing profound happiness about something. Dysphoria is to experience profound unease. Gender Dysphoria is when you experience a sense of that your body doesn’t match. The gender you feel yourself to be. The gender you experience yourself to be is different to what your body seems to look like. And that for some people can be an experience of extraordinary pain. So we experience a whole range of types of bodily brokenness, none of us gets off the hook on this. But the fact that we have problems with our bodies, again, isn’t a sign we need to be escaping from our bodies. But that our bodies need to be redeemed, they’re not there yet. And the answer to all of our problems in our bodies is not going to lie in our bodies, we can’t use our bodies to fix our bodies. Now what we begin to see is that the answer to our bodily brokenness lies in the ultimate bodily brokenness of Jesus. Colossians 122 God has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death.

Sam Allberry
This is a bit of a sidebar on a tangent, but our our dear friends who wrestled with gender dysphoria are not going to experience the rest and sense of bodily harmony that they longed for, by altering their body and all the ways they feel their body needs to be altered.

Sam Allberry
Now it is only through the broken body, bodily brokenness of Jesus that we can begin to have a hope and a future much more. I need to say on that. So your body is not straightforward. Number four, your body is not yours. First Corinthians chapter six, and verse 13 says these words their words which in in any other context would be horrific. Sorry, not verse 13, verse 19, First Corinthians six verse 19, Paul says these words you are not your own. You were bought with a price. There are two ways to hear those words. If they are sent to you by another human being, they are horrific words to hear. A very precious friend of mine was, was trafficked earlier in her life and she heard the words you are not your own. You were born at a price. She is now a wonderfully been able to get out of that situation. She now has a wonderful sister in Christ. And these words now from Jesus are precious. You are not your own. You were bought with a price said from another human being those words. Show you how little worth and dignity you have. Set from Jesus those words tell you just how precious you are. Back in verse 13, Paul says these words he said, the body is meant for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. If we are Christians, our bodies belong to Jesus now. The Lord is for the body. Paul says in other words, God is interested in our bodies again, his eternal plan involves our bodies. And he says the body is for the Lord. The body is designed to be a vehicle through which we glorify God, that’s what it’s been made for. That’s its purpose. And it’s only now that we have come to Christ and and have been bought by Jesus that this can begin to happen. We now belong to Jesus, he hasn’t bullied his way into power over you. He hasn’t coerced you or manipulated you, he hasn’t stolen you. He’s laid down his own life for you. He has yielded his body for you, so that you can now belong to Him. And part of what it means to be a Christian as your body is not your own now. And so Paul says in verse 20, So glorify God in your body. Here’s some good news, your body. However you feel about it. However others you may think feel about it, however you experience it, your body can glorify God right now.

Sam Allberry
It’s interesting, since I’ve been working on what the Bible says about our bodies I’ve had so many people, men and women, young and old, opening up to me about struggles they’ve had with with their body image. And a lot of it derives from feeling as though their body is not acceptable to other people. And it’s a really dear friend of mine who has a wonderful, wonderful ministry, he would be in his late 30s. He’s always been short. When he was a young man. He was at some Christian camp or other where he was helping out and someone, he was with a bunch of people and someone said, we need, we need a few men to kind of help lift some heavy things to help set up for something so I’ll help. And the friends around him said, No, you don’t count. And as he was telling me this, decades later, he was still recalling this with tears in his eyes and saying it was as if there’s a kind of a banner over his entire life saying you don’t count because of your height. In this instance. I can think of another friend who tells me that whenever he goes to the beach with his friends, he’s he’s desperate not to take his shirt off in front of his friends. Because when he grew up, he’s naturally skinny. He was given a kind of an idea that if you’re a man, you’re meant to look a certain way and he was too skinny to count. So even now, he still feels desperately self conscious about being thin There’s a whole bunch of others of us who feel desperately self conscious about not being thin. But so much of how we feel about ourselves has been determined by the approval and disapproval of other people at certain times in our life. So let me give you some good news. If your body belongs to Jesus, then the only person who needs to approve of your body is Jesus. He is a much kinder master of your body than anyone else is going to be. Most of us live unconsciously if not consciously is though. It it’s our culture that owns our body. So glorify culture in your body, and we can’t. And so we feel crushed.

Sam Allberry
Our bodies are always going to be used to glorify someone.

Sam Allberry
And we find in Jesus are far Kinder master of our bodies than we will find anywhere else. It is Jesus view of you that is now defining. He has the power to liberate you from the views of everybody else. And he is the one who says I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy, and my burden is light. So what kind of body does Jesus approve of? Three very quick things before we move on. Firstly, your body, we need to steward our bodies. Paul says in the middle of talking to husbands and Ephesians five about how they ought to treat their wives. He says husbands to love their wives as their own bodies. He then says after all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it. Paul is speaking typically, he’s not speaking exhaustively, there are people who hate their bodies. But typically, we instinctively feed and care for our bodies. And so Paul is saying, in likewise, men care for your wives. But it’s interesting, Paul is is showing us actually part of stewarding our bodies is to feed them and care for them. What we eat is not spiritually irrelevant.

Sam Allberry
We’re to care for our bodies. In First Timothy four verse eight, Paul says physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things. And the fact that godliness has ultimate value doesn’t change the fact that physical training still has some value. And again, we can easily get this wrong and think well, the body doesn’t matter. It’s it’s just there to be used up. I’m told I’ve not been able to find this firsthand. But Robert Murray McShane, who was one of the great preachers of the 19th century, pushed himself so hard in ministry that he did his health in and he died before he hit 30. And as he was dying, it’s It’s reported that he said, God gave me two things. He gave me a message to deliver. And he gave me a horse to ride referring to his body. And he’s reported to have said towards the end of his life, I killed the horse. And now I cannot deliver the message. Physically caring for yourself is not unspiritual because it’s not your body. It belongs to Jesus. So we need to steward our body. Secondly, we need to consecrate our bodies Romans 12 Verse one talks about offering our bodies to be a living sacrifice, pledging our bodies to God and Paul is using the word body there to kind of encompass all that we do physically in our lives. Got again, it’s not just interested in in a spiritual part of you he’s offered in he’s interested in all of your physical life. Romans 613 talks about offering the members the part serve your body to God as instruments of righteousness. So when we offer our bodies it’s not some grand, but conveniently vague gesture. Paul is saying actually think through the parts of the body and what it looks like to offer them to God as instruments of righteousness. Be specific I’m to offer God I’m to offer God my feet. Where can my feet take me to be instruments of righteousness? Have to offer God my eyes? How can I use my eyes to look upon this world in the way that Jesus does? When I’m stuck in traffic is my natural response to be just annoyed at everybody else wanting to use the same piece of road as I am. Or like Jesus, when I see these crowds, like sheep without a shepherd, do I have compassion on them? So a body pleasing to Jesus is caught is the body that’s consecrated to him that’s offered to him. And then the third thing Paul talks in First Corinthians nine about disciplining our bodies, training our bodies, it’s not that the body is a bad thing, it needs to be punished with the body is a useful thing. And we need to learn how to control our bodies.

Sam Allberry
So our bodies are not our own. And then finally, and all too briefly, as we finish, your body is not finished. Philippians three has these wonderful words to say about our waiting for Jesus Philippians three verse 20 Asad is in ship is in heaven. And from it, we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body. That you feel the loneliness of your own body. He will transform our lowly body to be like, His glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. So listen to this. Your body has a future in Jesus. Right now. It’s slowly you’re allowed to think that when you look in the mirror, yep, my body slowly. But here’s the other thing you need to say to yourself. Jesus is going to transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body, the body with which he’s been raised is going to be the type of body that we are raised with. These bodies are going to be resurrected, they’re going to be renewed. And Jesus is going to do that by the power then enables him even to subject all things to himself. So you may think, Well, I don’t think he’s going to do much with this. And Jesus is like, I’ve got the power by which I’m subjecting all of reality to myself to play with here. I think I’ll be okay. You are not that special. Our bodies have a future we will enjoy a resurrected physical life in the new creation or return that he is not going to be spent floating around in some kind of ghostly kind of way. Our future is physical. Which means this life now is not the only experience of bodily existence you’re ever going to have. And so to my dear friends who have have chronic painful health conditions, your best physical days are not in your past. They are in your future. Our dear sister Johnny Erickson, Todd who many of us will be aware of her ministry and so deeply grateful for her ministry she said on a number of occasions that when she gets use of her legs and and in the age to come the very first thing she is looking forward to doing with her legs is kneeling before her savior that is biblically grounded anticipation and hope. Our bodies have a future and therefore we can we can almost welcome the aging and decay of our bodies for that reason. It’s a sign actually we’re getting nearer to La resurrections. So all that to say the gospel is good news. It’s good news for every part of life. It is good news for your body. Your body It is not accidental. You are meant to be here. God meant you to have that body. Your body is not incidental. It’s part of your calling. Your body’s not straightforward. In any number of respects, your body’s not your own. You belong to Jesus. And your body’s not finished. It will be resurrected to serve God perfectly in the age to come. Let me pray for us. Our Father, we do groan inwardly as we await our adoption and the redemption of our bodies, thank you, Lord, that we have that to wait for. And even as the waiting is agonizing, nevertheless, we’re so glad for that anticipation and that hope. For the piece, help us to be assured, encouraged, stabilized by the scriptures have to say in a in a context that is so confusing to us about our bodies and how we think about them. Help us to know ourselves made by you, owned by you, pledged to you. One day to be redeemed by you and in the meantime, to serve you. For we ask in Jesus name, Amen.