BNC Podcast
BNC Podcast
Voice of the Nazarene 11-17-24
Voice of the Nazarene 11-17-24
Coming to you from North Central Ohio. We share with you the voice of the Nazarene, a week by week, venture into the Word of God sponsored by the Bucyrus, Ohio Church of the Nazarene. We join our Pastor, Reverend Ray LaSalle and the voice of the Nazarene. I want to touch on physical health this morning, back there in the Third Epistle of John, verse two, John is writing to Gaius, beloved, I wished, above all things, that thou mayest prosper be in health even as thy soul prosper. And John is wanting Gaius to experience health. And he mentions that he wants him to prosper financially and spiritually and in between that he mentions about the body, about being in health, that the body be kept healthy. Now, if you had a 2024 Rolls-Royce, I know you can afford them. You don't fool me. They demand a high test. Can you imagine rolling into one of these little old, cheap filling stations with bargain gas, and you put in dirty, cheap fuel into that tank and feed that engine. All of those European cars have to have high tests, and yet we do it all the time with our body. We put in a lot of junk fuel and junk food. And I'm simply trying to say that you're priceless. You're a much more value than that Rolls-Royce in God's sight. You're the temple of God. And he shares with us Romans 12, verse one, I urge you, brothers, in view of God, to offer your bodies a living sacrifice. Notice, he didn't say to offer your souls, but he said to offer your bodies holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Listen, you can't serve God except in your body. People said, Well, I'll be there in spirit. I can't physically be there, no, because you can't be somewhere where you aren't. That's not good English, but I guarantee you caught on. You can't be someplace unless you're there physically. And he says, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Did you know that taking care of your health is an act of worship? Let me summarize it. We we we all need to get our bodies in better health, not just so we can look better, not just so we can feel better, not so that we'll live longer. And I'm for all of that, and those are legitimate reasons, but because, number one, God created your body, and two, Jesus died for your body, and God's Holy Spirit lives in your body, and your body is the great battleground between God and The Devil. We'll get to that after bit. And my body is connected to the body of Christ, and one day, God's going to resurrect this body. And in the meantime, you better realize, one day we'll give an account for this body and the deeds that were done in this body, that's the spiritual reason. And based on those seven facts, do you see how caring for your body is more than just that it looks better. It's a spiritual discipline. And I want to look at God's plan for our physical health. Look again, Third Epistle of John, I pray that you may enjoy good health and all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well, the Bible is teaching us the importance of physical health, spiritual health, and the truth is, we already know what we ought to be doing for our physical health. I mean, it's not rocket science to get healthy, you need to eat right, eat less, exercise more, get your sleep and try to reduce the stress level in your life. We know all of these things, nothing new. So what is the motivation for getting healthy and staying healthy? It's not just to look good, it's not to get more compliments. You really look nice, and you lost some weight. Where do they go? And all of that, there's a more important reason, and I believe it has eternal implications. The problem for many Christians is, if God would like to use them to do something in the kingdom, they wouldn't be able to respond because they're out of shape and they have no energy and maybe you want to really do something for God, but if you're not taking care of yourself, you can't. And God wants us to take care of the body that he gave us, not only because of where we live, but because of where he lives. The Bible teaches that he lives in us, and he works through us. And anything that God is going to do in your life, he's going to do it through your physical body. So if it's unhealthy, if it's out of shape, out of energy. There's not a lot that God can accomplish through us. Now, maybe that's a different motivation than you've ever heard about keeping fit and being healthy. But I want to look about what God is saying about the importance of your body, talking about your physical body, your physical health. You see, your physical health has to do with spiritual disciplines. There's habits that you have to develop and in order to develop those habits, you have to have the right motivation. So I'm going to take you this morning to First Corinthians, chapter six, beginning in verse 12, and we'll run our way down through verse 20. It's the classic passage on the body. And Paul's writing, Everything is permissible for me, but he said, Not everything's beneficial. It's all permissible. I mean, I have the freedom to do whatever I want to do, but I'm not going to be mastered by just letting my patience run free. So what's he saying? He's saying that some things in life are not necessarily wrong, but they're really not necessary. They're not beneficial, they're not helpful. And he's saying that life is too short to be doing things that are not necessary. So he said, I'm not going to be mastered into my body by just anything. I'm not going to let anything, including food, including laziness and television, sports, sex. I'm not going to let anything dominate my life or master my life. And so he's saying what the world says there in verse 13, food for the stomach, the stomach for food, and God eventually will destroy both. That's what the world says. In other words, he's saying some of these things will not last forever. That's not the real reason that you're here. You're not here to just look good. So he goes on to say in verse 13, the body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By His power, God raised the Lord from the dead. Here's the good news, and he will raise us also. That's the hope that I have when I stand in these mortuaries, week after week, speaking on a funeral over someone, it's the hope that when we place them beneath the sod, that one day Jesus Christ will return again. Now, how did God raise Jesus Christ from the dead, physically? And he's going to raise you also, the physical body from the dead. Now the Bible goes on to say verse 15, do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? So he drops down at verse 18, Flee from sexual immorality. I'm gonna throw a thought at you that maybe you haven't thought about, but I want you to think about it, because I'm concerned always about our people. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. That's why the devil throws the hardest thing he can throw at us. That's why we have preached sanctification through the years, the greatest work of grace that can keep us from the devil's greatest temptation. So do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You're not your own. You're bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with what? Your body. Don't come along telling me the body's not important. It's very important. This passage, and some others teach seven radical counter culture things that the world can't hardly get their mind around. And it's what the Bible says about the body. And until you can understand this key passage, the first thing is spiritual health. But I want to tell you, getting physically healthy in God's sight, getting our bodies right is a key to understanding. Now, here's what the Bible says about my body. Number one, my body is God's property. Boy, that concept is completely counter culture innit? The world has taught us, and we've been growing up to think that, hey, it's my body, I'll do with it what I want. And the Supreme Court is sat down and they have said, Hey, it's your body, do with it what you want. And we've turned this thing around and took it into the legal system, and God is speaking up and said, No, no, no, no, that's not your body. That's my body.It belongs to me. And God is saying, I own your body. I created it, but I loaned it to you. It's not yours. You didn't make it. You didn't create your body. And think about this, when you look around, everything that you see in the world and in life around us, it's created by God, and the creator owns it because he made it. And you don't really own anything in your life. It's a loan to you. Can I tell you a little secret? You didn't bring anything into this world, and when you leave here, you're not going to take anything with you. Now, if you want the wife to drop $50,000 there into the casket, she will, but it'll be a check. You don't own anything. It's just loaned to you for the few years that you're alive here on planet Earth. For here's what the psalmist says in the 24th Psalm, verse one, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. And think about this, you don't even own your money. You're not going to take it with you. Somebody else will have it next week. Our money just kind of floats around, but we don't hang on to it very well. You don't even own your talents there on loan from God. You don't even own time. David said, but a steps is between me and death. We don't own time. We don't even own the breath that's in our body, it's borrowed. And I want to tell you something, you don't own your body. It's on loan to you to use while occupying life on Earth. You get to use it while you're here. God owns it, and he loans it. Your body is God's property. Psalm
139:13, you created every part of me. You put me together in my mother's womb. I'm fearfully, wonderfully made. And now everything that God makes, he makes for a purpose. God has never made anything without a purpose. God never made a person without a purpose. And God didn't give you a body without a purpose, so don't kind of compartmentalize it and say, well, it really doesn't matter. Let me tell you something your spiritual health and your physical health, it matters to God. God gave you what you have, and God wants you to take care of it. That leads to a second radical truth. God expects me to manage my body. In other words, I'm not the owner, I'm just the manager. And the Bible shares the term a steward. We're kind of in charge of it. We're left in charge of it. For a little while, my body is a gift of God on loan to me and one day, someday, I'll stand before God and give an account of how I took care of my body. Paul says this in First Corinthians, 6:12, I'll now be mastered by anything. And he's saying, Hey, I'm responsible for the decisions I make about the health of my body, and I'm not going to let anything dominate it. I'm not going to let anything, whether it's food, television, you name it, drugs, whatever Paul is saying, I can't blame anybody else if I mistreat it. So think about it, one day we'll stand before God, what did you do with the body that I gave you? Now remember, life is a test. It's a trust. It's a temporary assignment. Life is preparation for the world to come, and this life is getting us ready for the next and we'll spend more time on that side than we will on this side. On this side, God is testing us. Why are we on Earth? Well, he's testing you to see what he can trust you with out there in eternity, this life is a test. And one day we'll give it account, including our body. What did you do with your mind? What did you do with your talents? What did you do with time? What did you do with opportunities? What about the freedoms that you have? What about the wealth, I've allowed to pass through your hands, your money? Life is a test, and God is watching to see how we manage all of these things that are on loan to us, and one of those gifts is our body. Here's the third thing that really got my mind. My body's the battleground. You see, the devil is aware that the Holy Spirit wants to dwell in us. John, chapter 14, verse 16, I'll pray the Father, He shall give you another comforter. And in verse 17, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. Satan doesn't want God to have a dwelling place on this Earth, and you know where God wants to dwell, I hope you do, in you. And so the devil will attack your mind. He'll attack your emotions. He'll he'll attack your drives, your passions, your desires, to keep you from giving God your body for that dwelling place. I was thinking this week about the attack there in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. And it was a three fold attack. You skip into the New Testament. It's Jesus Christ, the second Adam, and he's out there in the wilderness, temptation and the devil came in that same three pronged attack. When John wrote about it in the second chapter of First John the little epistle, verse 16, he said, For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life, you boil it all down. I can't, I can't narrow it down. But the Bible does, it narrows down to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life. Satan came against Jesus Christ. He came against Him in the physical, his body, as the Son of Man. You can't tempt God, the divine. You can only tempt the man's side, the human side. And He came against Him. You're hungry. 40 days without food, Turn these stones into bread, blessed to the flesh, those passions, those drives, you gotta satisfy them. You gotta get those drugs in. You gotta do this. Well, that didn't work. Took him up into a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world. Do you want all of this? You see, it's not just the passions. Sometimes he'll use possessions, things, what we can accumulate, and yet it's all jerked away from us. When the rich fool died, he left behind his barns and his rolling acres and everything. When that failed, Satan came again and it's the pride of life. It's what we call position, wanting to be noticed, popularity, those kinds of things God wants to dwell in us. And the battles between and over and about our bodies. When it talks about King Saul and said, The Spirit of the Lord departed from him there in
First Samuel, 16:14, and an evil spirit troubled him. The devil wants in you, and he's trying to get in, and he's trying to shove God away. And God wants in. The battle is over our body, and then May I, fourthly, say my body will be resurrected after I die. I hope we get a new version. I'm needing one. Sometimes my back and my knees go go out more than I do. It's not as bad as you think. Just put up your recorders. I hope we get a version 201. I've got version 1.0 right now, and in heaven, I believe that new body is going to be a 2.0 body. He said, When I get to heaven, I'm just going to sit on the clouds, kind of float around like a spirit. Better get it together, friend, you're going to have a body. He said, Well, I'll sit on the clouds and I'll flutter my wings like the angels. Angels are angels, and people are people, and you'll be a person. And those people that knew you in life, when they see you in heaven, they will know who you are and recognize you in your body. It may not be 1.0 it may be version 2.0 it's called the glorified body, but we'll get a new body. Now, I appreciate what little bit I get here. I'm glad God gave me some ears. I love sound. I love the sound of of the ocean, and I love rippling brooks, and I like to hear the wind blowing through those leaves on the trees. I like in a cold winter morning, to hear the crunch of snow and ice under foot. I like sound. I appreciate music. I'm glad that God give us eyes to see, and through those apertures, we're able to visualize the world around us. And falls a beautiful time when God just kind of turns the leaves into flowers with all colors. But can you imagine heaven? Somebody said it's just all going to be white. No, I don't believe it will. A God who made all the colors that we experience here, I believe heaven will be a multi sensory place and an extravaganza beyond anything. And can you imagine we can enjoy it in version 2.0, thank god. Well, he said in
First Corinthians, 6:14, by His power, God raised the Lord from the dead, and He will raise us also. So do you see how important your body is? God is saying, I'm not through with it. I'm going to come back for it. I'm going to put it together and make it work again. And the same God that makes a new heaven and a new Earth can make a new you, and the God that had the power to create you can have the power to recreate you. I don't care if your body is decayed out of the dust of the ground or been cremated. There's a God that can put it all back together. But number five, my body's connected to the body of Christ. I better take care of this body. The Bible said your body is not just your soul and spirit, but that your body is connected to the body of Christ. Let me read it to you, First Corinthians 6:15, it says this, do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself? Now, why does God care about how we treat our body? It's connected to his body, the body of Christ. And Jesus gave his body on a cross for us, and He wants us to honor him with our body. And of all people, I think Christians should be concerned about their health and how we use our bodies that God gave us more than anybody else. How you treat your body is a reflection of the Body of Christ. It's a testimony to the world. Now I'm not talking about over indulging in cosmetics and beauty products and physical workouts and trying to look like Hulk Hogan and all that. That's vanity, and that's going to the extreme, but it's making the most out of what God has given to us, honoring God with your body, representing him well. But here's another thing about the body, the Holy Spirit lives in my body. God put His Spirit in you, and that's why,
First Corinthians 6:19, do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you receive from God? That means that God has taken up residence inside of us when we place our faith in Christ, you become the temple of God. The Bible says in First Corinthians 3:16, don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple, and that God's Spirit lives in you. God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple. And throughout scripture, God has always had a dwelling place on Earth. When God had the tabernacle designed, he gave instructions to Moses, and it was made of a tent material and while they're traveling for 40 years, they could move that tent or that tabernacle. And God came and dwelt in the tabernacle. But later on, God showed up to David, and he had him to raise all these funds and gather things to build a great stone temple there in Jerusalem, and God dwelt there. Do you know where he dwells now? In you and in me. You're the Temple of flesh. We're God's dwelling place. And Second Corinthians
6:16, For we are the temple of the living God. Let me ask you a question. Can I ask you a question? One person said I could, so I'll just talk to them. If you were walking down the street and you saw a house of worship being vandalized by some thugs spraying confetti on it, breaking out the windows, trying to set it on fire, How would you feel? I'm talking about a building dedicated for worship as a house of worship. Would you be upset? Would you probably call the police? Or if some of you are big enough, would you try to take the crowd on? And yet, we do it every day, nearly with our own temple. We vandalize it by how we abuse it or misuse it, and we run it without any sleep, and we put junk into it. And I'm just simply saying when we let our bodies be stressed out, we go without sleep, we don't take care of it. We're vandalizing the temple of God, and God expects you and me to care for his temple. I'm responsible. Well, moving along, may I say that Jesus bought my body on a cross, my body, your body. Jesus didn't just say, just pay for your soul on the cross, he also paid for your body. Here's what it says. I'm not making all this up. Verse 20, you're not your own You were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your what body. It didn't say honor God with your spirit. It said, honor God with your body. He paid for the real estate in which we live in this body of ours. You want to know how much you're worth to God, just go to the cross. Look at the nails in his hands. How much do you love people? He gave his life? That's how much he cares. He would rather die than to live without you. He left the house of heaven and came to the barns of Bethlehem, just for you. He bought us. He paid for us. Not only created, but he bought us back. So why should we honor God with our body? How? How do you do that? Well, Paul answers that question right here in Romans,
12:1, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. The problem with a living sacrifice, they can keep crawling off, and we do, don't we? Lord, I'm going to live for you, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to straighten up, and then we forget about it the next day, and we kind of crawl off from our commitment and the vows that we made to God, and he said, we're to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Did you know that worship is given your body to God? He didn't just ask for your will, but he wants us to offer our physical body. Why? Because that's the only place that you can serve God. You can't serve God without a body. Offer your body as a living sacrifice. Your spiritual worship. Taking care of it is an act of worship. You say, time out, Pastor, you telling me that taking care of my body is an act of worship. No, I didn't say that. God said that. I'm just passing it on. I never saw this like I've seen it over this week, don't you wish I hadn't studied this. It's an act of worship, and you do it out of worship to God. You do it to be pleasing unto God. You do it out of gratitude. You do it that he can use you for His purpose. Therefore, we need to manage our physical health and spiritual discipline. We have to set some habits that have to be developed. And there are certain kinds of premises that we can get promises. You know, the Bible is full of all kinds of promises about health and our body in the Scripture, but you have to do it God's way, and therefore you need to know his premises so he'll keep his promises. Now, I was reading, I'll close. Okay, I should have started on this one, John, chapter five, verse six, Jesus comes along and he finds a man that had been sick. This guy had been sick for for 38 years. And Jesus said to him, would you like to be well? What a dumb question, huh? Or do you just want to just stay in the shape you're in? Wilt thou be made whole? Do you want to be well? That's the question that Jesus is asking that I'm passing on to you. Do you want to remain as you are? You want to say, you know, this is an act of worship. God, you you loan me this, you loan me that, and you loan me this body. And God, if you'll help me, a year from now, I'll not have it in the shape that it's in right now. I'm going to treat this gift, I'm going to take care of it for you as an act of worship. Do you want to remain in the shape you're in? What one step could you take that would make you a better you? And find someone and tell them and ask them, would you hold me accountable? Would you check on me next week and I'll. Check on you, and together, we can get more healthy spiritually, financially, we can be in health physically and relationally, and we can go on and on. God, I want to have an act of worship. I'm going to take care of this gift that you have loaned me so that you can use me. Thanks for being a part of the voice of the Nazarene. Visit us every Sunday at 9am with BNC's Pastor Ray LaSalle, for more information regarding BNC, visit Bucyrus nazarene.org.