Managing My Body Series

“Managing Life’s Resources”

Managing My Body

(Stewardship Series – Part I)

April 15th 2002

10:30

Introduction:

A man on vacation was strolling along outside his hotel in Acapulco, enjoying the sunny Mexican weather. He heard the screams of a woman kneeling in front of a child. The man knew enough Spanish to determine that the boy had swallowed a coin. Seizing the child by the heels, the man held him up, gave him a few shakes, and an American quarter dropped to the sidewalk. “Oh, thank you sir!” cried the woman. “You seemed to know just how to get it out of him. Are you a doctor?” “No, ma’am,” replied the man. “I’m with the United States Internal Revenue Service.”

I thought you might get a chuckle out that one since the deadline for IRS is upon us. Anytime we hear the topic of stewardship announced we have the tendency to think money. Granted money is apart of stewardship. However the paradigm of stewardship encompasses so much more than money. That’s why the title of this series is … “Managing Life’s Resources.”

Note that we are talking about management and not ownership. You might ask, “Well what’s the difference?” The difference is simply this, “That, that is owned the owner has total and permanent control over.” That, that is managed, the manager has control over but no permanency.

God is the owner and hold title to everything that is seen and unseen.

· Exod 19:5 “ … the whole earth is mine,” (NIV)

· Deut 10:14 “To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.” (NIV)

· Job 41:11 “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.” (NIV)

· Ps 24:1 “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;” (NIV)

· Ps 50:12 “ … for the world is mine, and all that is in it.” (NIV)

So it all belongs to God, He is the creator, the owner and the one to whom every one of us will give an accounting to in our management of what he has entrusted us with. (Matthew 25:14)

One of the most precious of things that God has entrusted us with is our body! I don’t know if you’ve thought of this and realized this but God has called us to be managers of bodies they ultimately do not belong to us!

You do not have total and permanent control over your body

Appointed unto men once to die.

But what an incredible gift from God your body is! If you compared it to a machine no other machine comes even close to its design, precision and functionality.

Consider the skeleton system. Two hundred and six bones compose the skeleton, about half of which are in the hands and feet. Most of the bones are connected to other bones at flexible joints, which lend the framework a high degree of flexibility. No robot in the world has the mobility and dexterity of your body.

The heart is the strongest muscle in the body, beating an average of 100,000 times a day. Weighing less than a pound, it pumps blood through the 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the body.

No wonder the Word says we are fearfully and wonderfully made!

God’s word makes it very clear that I am to be a good manager of my body. The Bible makes 3 major statements about this stewardship of our bodies. (Says more but all can be relegated to these 3 statements.)

One of the major statements that the Word makes about the stewardship or our bodies is:

I. If married, my body does not belong to me alone but also to my spouse.

The Worship leader of First Church Big was having a problem. He never had a problem of putting together a worship service together to match the Pastor’s sermon but this Sunday he had met his match. He couldn’t decide what to do.

All week he prayed and thought about all the courses and hymns he knew and could not find one to go along with the Pastor’s sermon.

Finally in desperation in the choir room he began asking the assembled choir. I need your help. I try to match the worship music with the Pastor’s message and I have been stumped this week. Can you help me? The Pastor’s message this week is on the Biblical view of sex in a marriage and for the life of me I cannot come up with even one hymn or chorus to go with his message. Any suggestions?

It was quiet for a couple of minutes and then a small, elderly man in the back of the choir said we could sing, "Precious Memories!"