So hey there, good to see you. If you weren’t here last week we are in the second week of a series called Build Your Core which according to the experts is especially relevant this time of year since most of us who have made resolutions or decisions to change up some things in our lives this year have diet, exercise, and weight loss at our near the top of the list. We know that we are healthier, that life is just better when we decide to build our core, to work on our bodies and a lot of us have decided that 2020 is the year that we need to do that. Which is a good thing. We learned last week that God even says in the Bible in 1 Timothy 4 that...physical training has some value in our lives. So it’s great to build that core, but what we are really after together heading into this new year is building a different kind of core. See, those same verses that say that physical training has some value also say this. Training ourselves to be Godly has more. That’s a focus on a different kind of core and that’s what we are chasing after together in this series in an effort to make 2020 different for each of us.
So last week as we kicked this thing off, we said before we get to what we need to do and how we are supposed to do it, there are a few things we need to know. We have to understand that church alone is not the answer, and that it’s relationship with Jesus not religion that leads us to the life we are looking for. If that’s true, the question is, and we asked it last week, are we really following Jesus or are we walking into yet another year inviting him to follow us? We ultimately landed the plane with this. Nothing really changes when we decide to change, things begin to change when we commit to change. So, let’s pick it right there and jump back into this. Now that we are committed, it’s time for us to give a little time to what needs to change and how we go about doing that.
ILLUST> One of the books on my Kindle that I have been jumping in and out of for some time now is called Atomic Habits. I really do recommend the book and think that it is especially helpful at this time of year but if I am honest I’ve had trouble staying with it and staying in it. The author James Clear has a tendency to get into some of the science behind our habits. Honestly, I’m just not a science guy, and despite my best efforts, my eyes tend to glaze over and my mind starts to drift as we start to go there. There is a reason why I went to law school and became a trial attorney. Pretty early in the book Clear tells the story of Dave Brailsford, a man who was hired to coach the British Cycling team in 2003, a disappointing team that had never really been competitive internationally. Five years later Brailsford led them to winning 60 percent of the gold medals available at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. 4 years later they set 9 Olympic records and 7 world records when the games came to London. So, yay, that’s great but what does that have to do with us as we sit here today thinking about building our core in this new year? Here it is. I think we need to pay attention to his philosophy and strategy. Brailsford says “it is about searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything. If you break down everything that goes into riding a bike and then improve by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.”
So, maybe real change in our lives is not as hopeless as it might seem. As we continue to dream about our desired destination someday, it’s important that we not miss the small steps in front of us today. I think that is a helpful mindset for all of us to keep in front of us as we jump into this and begin to talk about what really needs to change and how we are going to go about changing things up in our lives in this new year. If you brought a Bible we are going to be in Romans chapter 12 today. If you don’t have a Bible they are back on the back tables that you can grab right now if you would like if you close or on you can always grab one on your way out. As always you can hit our app or the YouVersion app too. Or you can ignore all of that and read along with me on the screens. So here we go Romans chapter 12 beginning with verse 1…
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.
Okay. So just a little bit more set up than usual before we begin to break this verse down. Before we do that I want to go back to a moment in the life of Jesus. You can find it if you want to read it later in Matthew 22. Someone comes up to Jesus and says hey of all the commandments, there are over 600 which is most important. Jesus answers by quoting this thing called the Shema. It is a part of prayer in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy chapter 6, something that God has been reminding his people is most important for centuries. It goes like this, what’s most important is this. We are to love God with all our heart, soul, and might. As we think about building a different kind of core this year I think we need to think about that, starting today with this might, strength, physical body piece. Paul tells us that physical training has some value. He also tells us in 1 Corinthians that our bodies are God’s temple and that we are to honor God with our bodies and now he tells us that offering our bodies is an act of worship. What does that really mean? Let’s start with this. We need to understand that...
OUR ACTIONS REVEAL WHAT WE REALLY BELIEVE. According to Paul how we treat our bodies, what we choose to do to or with our bodies is supposed to be an offer of worship to God. Is it? If I am honest what statement is my outward external, physical behavior, habits, actions, and decisions making about my relationship with God. If our true beliefs are revealed by what we do, what would someone looking from the outside conclude about me and you?
ILLUST> If they saw me on the couch knocking off half of a giant bag of Peanut M&M’s while chasing it with a crisp and refreshing Hazy IPA what would they conclude? Don’t judge me. It’s not just about overeating or being overweight. Maybe I drink too much, or smoke too much. Have sex with people I’m not married to. Maybe my speech is peppered with gossip, or filthy, obscene, racist, hateful language. Maybe I’m selfish, self-centered, angry, violent, full of rage or intentionally intimidating. Maybe I’m passive, co-dependent or needy. Maybe I’m obsessed with fitness and am all about how I look. Maybe I’ve given up and don’t care if I’m healthy or how I look. Maybe I will never give any of my time to reading my Bible, serving, or attending church.
Listen, there is no judgment or condemnation here. You’ve got yours and I’ve got mine too. The beauty of what we are talking about is that Jesus makes it possible for us to change any part of our lives that don’t line up with what he says is best, and right, and true. I’m not trying to change anything about you today. I’m not even suggesting that you need to change. What I am suggesting is this. We all need to take an honest look at our own lives, our bodies, our physical selves and take whatever it is that might be an issue, lay it down right next to what Jesus says is right for our lives, and be open to rethinking our strategies moving forward. That’s all I’m asking you to do.
ILLUST> When I think about this I think about this quote from Dallas Willard from his great book The Spirit of the Disciplines. Listen to this. “One of the greatest deceptions in the practice of the Christian religion is the idea that all that really matters is our internal feelings, ideas, beliefs, and intentions. It is this mistake about the psychology of the human being that more than anything else divorces salvation from life, leaving us a headful of vital truths about God and a body unable to fend off sin.”
In other words, the reason that so many of us are constantly making the same mistakes (you ever find yourself doing that, me too) is because what we believe, say we believe, or how we feel about God really doesn’t matter at all if we don’t get out of bed in the morning and build a strategy to put what we feel and believe into practice with our bodies. We need to take our physical, sexual, old, young, or aging, prone to get hungry, bent toward addiction and over-indulging bodies, not the ones we used to have or wish we had the bodies the bodies we live in right now and line them up with Jesus and what he says is true. That’s worship. So, if you really want to know what I really believe to be true about God watch how I live my life in this body. Yikes! That’s tough. Yes it is. A part of getting there requires us to understand what we are up against. Let’s keep reading...v.2…
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Over our break over the Christmas holidays I read my advance copy of John Eldredge’s new book coming out this February called Get Your Life Back. We will be talking a little more about it next week and plan to have it out with the other rescue gear when it comes out. I love the title. It requires action. My life has been taken from me and I’m going to have to be proactive to get it back. The tagline of the Book is even better. Everyday practices for a world gone mad. Paul writes do not conform to the pattern of this world. What’s the pattern of this world. I believe that John’s right. The world has gone mad and we’ve all been sucked into a life that nobody is really enjoying. So we could talk about how we live at the speed of the swipe, are too busy, and how the media and technology is eating our lunch. All of that would be a worthwhile use of our time. But when I read what Paul writes here I think it would be a better use of our time to pause for a few minutes and talk about this…
COMPENSATION AND MEDICATION NEVER LEAD TO TRANSFORMATION. ILLUST> Compensation and medication never really change anything. It took me about 40 years of my life, blowing up my life, losing my ministry, almost losing Stacy and my girls, and 3 years of great counseling to really understand this. What am I talking about? I am talking about this underlying core belief that I had that I was weak, ugly, and unlovable. When I look back on my life so many of the things that I did or have done are directly connected to that core belief. So, when there are things thing my life that I would like to change but can’t what do I do? Answer, I can try to compensate for it. Basketball, Officer Candidate School in the Marine Corps, Law School, becoming a state prosecutor and then a successful trial attorney, and yes, even a part of becoming a pastor, all of these things are an example of that. Marrying a beautiful girl was a part of that too. Stacy had no idea what she was getting herself into when she married me when we were 20. I honestly didn’t realize what she was getting into either. That’s the way this stuff works. Not too long after we were married the tape replaying over and over again in the background said this. Stacy loves me because she has to. She’s a very loyal commitment girl with integrity and she made a public promise. She signed the deal. She’s going to make it work, even if she is not really into me at all. See, as long as that core belief remains, I’m weak, ugly, and unlovable there are going to be problems. Over the next 22 years there were problems...huge problems, devastating problems.
The pattern of this world is not to learn to search for this stuff and deal with it. Instead, we learn how to compensate for it and how to medicate it. That is what so many of the addictions in our lives are really about. I have never really struggled with alcohol or drug addiction but I certainly get people that do. I absolutely love a good hazy IPA in a frosty glass today but honestly I’ve been giving more thought to that lately, especially after a long hard day. Here is what I’ve been asking myself. Am I drinking this to celebrate or medicate? Is this just something else that I am doing with my body to help me compensate for how I am feeling or to medicate the pain associated with it? Any of that sound familiar to you? This is the way of this world isn’t it?
Paul gets our struggle here. He identifies with it in Romans chapter 7 when he says I don’t get it. He says “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do. For I have a desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” Does that ever feel like your life? Me too. Yes, we are tempted, and yes sin is a struggle for us but we have to understand how the enemy in our stories serves up sin to compensate for perceived weaknesses and medicate pain. If you spend a little time thinking about it and looking for it here’s what you will find. The area where you are most tempted is directly connected to where you are most broken. The temptation is an offer to compensate for how you see yourself and/or to help you medicate the pain that comes with it.
The pattern of this world is pretty simple. We use our bodies to compensate for an unhealthy and inaccurate self image and to medicate the pain associated with it and never get to the core of the problem. God says don’t conform to the pattern of this world there’s a better way. He says that true transformation, true and lasting change comes as we renew our minds...as we learn to change the way that we think. Not just the way we think about God, but changing how we see ourselves and think about ourselves too. When that happens we are freed up and able to offer our bodies to God. Why, because now our bodies are not tied up 24/7 trying to serve, please, satisfy, and medicate us. Let’s finish with the last sentence of verse 2...
Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Then you will finally find and experience what life with God, this amazing abundant life to the fullest that he sent his son Jesus to give you can truly be. After beating himself up over and over again for not being able to do what he wants to do but instead doing what he hates to do Paul finally concludes with this statement “what a wretched man I am”. That’s probably not too far off how some of us feel about ourselves even as we sit here today. After Paul reaches this conclusion he asks a question. Who will rescue me from this body that keeps making mistakes and screwing up? Then in the very next verse he answers his own question. Listen to this Romans 7:25…
25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
God delivers me through the life and power of Jesus that lives in me. In 1 Corinthians 6 Paul tells us that even things that are permissible for us, things that are not bad or wrong in and of themselves like Peanut M&Ms, Reeses cups and Hazy IPA’s, not wrong but make six pack abs somewhat of a challenge, even those things are not always beneficial for us. Then he offers us some advice on how we say no to the things that aren’t really beneficial. Here it is verse 14 of 1 Corinthians 6...
14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.
Sometimes it’s not just about not conforming to the world. It’s about not conforming to church world either. Here’s what I mean. We so often make life with God about what he has done for us and will one day do for us when we die. Life in between often feels like it is on us and it just makes sense that we would use our bodies to get through life and make life work. All that Jesus is up to and wants to continue to do in our lives often gets lost in church. See, when it comes to overcoming things that are getting in the way of me loving God with my whole body, might, and strength, I need to understand that I can’t do that on my own. The good news is that I don’t have to. We have already taken time today to pause and remember what Jesus did for us on the cross. I don’t want to minimize that. We are all hopeless without it. Because of that someday is going to be great. But we need to remind ourselves that the story doesn’t end at the cross. God raised Jesus from the dead and now we are promised that resurrection power is available to you and to me. Which means not just someday but today can be so much better too. So, knowing that, here’s the question I want us to leave here with today...
WHAT’S ONE STEP I CAN TAKE OR ONE THING I CAN CHANGE IN THIS PART OF MY LIFE TODAY? ILLUST> I want to finish where we started with a quote from Atomic Habits. James Clear says this. “Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you are willing to stick with them for years. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis. You should be more concerned with your current trajectory than your current results.”
Here’s the good news. Every single one of us has the ability to change the trajectory of our lives before we walk out of this room today. Maybe it’s a decision to follow Jesus. Maybe it’s recognition of all that he’s done for us and what he wants to continue to do for us. Maybe it’s a decision to trade in my own willpower for the power of Jesus that’s available to me. Dream big of the destination but stay focused on the next step. Knowing how important our bodies are to God and how they are a part of how we demonstrate our love for him what’s one step you can take or thing you can change starting today? What could life begin to look like for you if you stopped going it alone and really began to lean into God’s power in your life? The only way to make 2020 different is for us to begin to do at least a few things differently. It looks a little different for all of us. What’s it look like for you? What is a thing or two that you could begin to do? Let me pray for us.
