Life in the Spirit #1
What are folks made of?
I Thessalonians 5:23
CHCC – December 4, 2011
INTRODUCTION:
Have you heard this old nursery rhyme:
What are little boys made of, made of?
What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails and puppy-dog tails;
That's what little boys are made of.
What are little girls made of, made of?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice and everything nice;
That's what little girls are made of.
That’s actually part of a longer --- 13 stanza --- poem that Robert Southby wrote in 1820 called, “What are Folks made of?” That’s what we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to talk about how the Bible answers the question - What are folks made of? (This sermon is more like a lesson than most of my sermons)
I Thessalonians 5:23 says, May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to scripture, folks are made of: Body, Soul, and Spirit.
I want to spend time examining this because it helps us understand what salvation means. When you read scripture with this construct in mind, it will help you understand more fully what changes when you place your trust in Jesus Christ.
We’ll start with the BODY:
1. Body
This is the obvious part of what folks are made of. The human body consists of flesh, bone, muscle, blood, organs, brain, neurons, chemicals, hormones, etc. I read that the body contains copper, zinc, cobalt, calcium, manganese, phosphates, iron, nickel and silicon. Genesis 2:7 says God formed man from the dust of the earth. For all other animals, God spoke them into existence, but God personally formed the human body.
The Bible says that when you put your faith in Jesus, your BODY becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit. We know that God strengthens and heals the body. But salvation doesn’t mean your body is instantly transformed.
The body you brought to church this morning is a temporary dwelling. In fact, I read that --- if you’re over 30 --- your body has already started shrinking in height. Even more depressing - most people have lost 50% of their taste buds by the time they reach the age of 60!
Here’s the good news. Philippians 3:20 says that on that day, Jesus will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. These temporary bodies are going to be transformed into the perfect, eternal bodies … the kind of bodies Adam and Eve had before the fall. The kind of body that Jesus had after his resurrection! That’s what salvation means for the body.
But folks are made of much more than the physical body.
Human beings are made of both BODY and of SOUL.
2. Soul
While animals have “instinct” humans have “soul.” A scientist named Rich Deem said, Compared to our closest "relatives" in the animal kingdom, scientific research indicates that humans are unique on many fronts, including creativity, personality, abstract thinking, and moral judgment. (www.godandscience.org)
The SOUL is often called personality. It’s made up of Mind, Will, and Emotion.
• The MIND refers to our creativity and ability to reason intellectually. The mind works through physical brain cells --- but it is more than chemical activity.
• The WILL can also be called volition. God has given every person free will. We have the innate ability to choose what we will believe, and to choose what we will think, say, and do.
• EMOTION includes desires, appetites and all sorts of feelings (anger, happiness, anxiety, peace, fear, etc)
Here’s what a neuroscientist at New York University wrote: ". There is as yet no neuroscience of personality. We have no idea how the hunk of gray matter called our brain make us who we are." Joseph LeDoux, Horgan, J. 1999. The Undiscovered Mind; and Jim Holt. 1997. Science Resurrects God
Well, scripture tells how our brains make us who we are. Genesis 1:27 says, God created mankind in his own image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. The “image of God” refers in part to the human soul. Many scriptures talk about God’s creativity and reasoning, about God’s will, and about God experiencing anger or joy. God created a human SOUL that is fashioned after His own attributes.
The SOUL is what makes us free agents. It’s with our WILL that we choose to believe in God … or choose to reject God. Our free will allows us to direct our thoughts and to choose our course in life.
One of my favorite examples of this is in Psalm 42:5 where David said, Why, O my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your trust in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. This must have been one of David’s favorite sayings because he repeats the exact same words two more times: Psalm 42:11 and 43:5
When it comes to SALVATION, we need to understand that God has already chosen us. But He waits to see if we will choose Him. Salvation won’t come to anyone apart from our own free choice. God will not take away our volition … He will not FORCE us to choose Him. That’s not the way God operates.
By the way, that IS the way Satan operates. His tactic is to deceive and trap people … so that they will eventually lose the ability to make their own choices. That’s what addiction is. It’s what the Bible means when it talks about people being slaves to sin.
God wants us to CHOOSE Him so that He can set our SOUL free from slavery to sin!
I remember a children’s song that sums it up:
He's still working on me
To make me what I ought to be
It took him just a week to make the moon and stars
The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars
How loving and patient He must be
'Cause He's still workin' on me
Romans 12 explains how this works: (read this with me) Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2
The BODY will one day be transformed from mortal to immortal. The SOUL is progressively transformed as we live by faith. But folks are not made of just BODY and SOUL.
Folks are made of BODY, SOUL, and SPIRIT.
3. Spirit
John 4:24 tells us that God is spirit. Human beings --- made in God’s image --- are also spiritual beings. Watchman Nee analyzed the human spirit in these three parts: Conscience, Intuition, and Communion.
(By the way, a lot of the information today came from a book called The Spiritual Man. It was written by a Chinese martyr named Watchman Nee. The book is over 700 pages, so you can be glad I’m summarizing!)
• CONSCIENCE - We all know what conscience is! Even a 3-year-old knows when he’s done something wrong. The conscience plays a part in letting us know that we desperately need forgiveness for sin.
* INTUITION - This is the ability to have wisdom and discernment that goes beyond intellectual reasoning.
* COMMUNION is the part of us that can connect directly with God. This is the part of humanity that longs for intimate relationship … and can only be fully satisfied by connecting with God.
It’s what BlaisePascal meant when he said “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”
When Adam and Eve sinned, their spiritual connection with God was broken. Death entered the world at that moment --- but Adam and Eve lived physically many more years. So what changed when they sinned?
When they chose to disobey God, their connection with God was irreparably broken. The human SPIRIT gets its LIFE from God’s Spirit. We were created to live in connection with God’s Holy Spirit. Without that connection, we are spiritually dead.
Colossians 2:13 says, When you were dead in your sins … God made you alive with Christ.
This is the immediate change that happens when you are saved.
* The BODY awaits a future transformation.
* The SOUL is progressively transformed.
* But the SPIRIT is instantly and miraculously resurrected at the moment of salvation!
I John 5: 12 says, Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. Not that you one day WILL have eternal life, but that you now have eternal life.
You see, Eternal Life begins at the moment of Salvation. When you make the choice to place your trust in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, Communion with God is restored. The dead and darkened spirit is infused with the light and life of Jesus.
Jesus said, I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. John 10:10
Jesus came to give us Life with a capital “L.”
CONCLUSION:
We started today with a Nursery Rhyme, so I’ll sum things up with another stanza we could add to that nursery rhyme:
What are Christians made of?
What are Christians made of?
Body, soul, and a spirit made whole
That’s what Christians are made of.
On the day of Pentecost, people heard the first Gospel sermon from the Apostle Peter. They cried out, “What must we do to be saved?”
Peter answered, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38
(Next week we’re going to talk more about the gift of the Holy Spirit.)
The “gift of the HOLY SPIRIT” means that …
God’s Spirit connects to your spirit ---
and you are instantly, completely, and eternally transformed -
from darkness to light - from death to LIFE.
