“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!"
1 Cor 7:4-5
4 The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.
5 Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (NIV)
This scripture teaches:
Mutual Exclusivity (Belonging to each & one else)
Gen 2:24
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (NIV)
1 Cor 6:16
16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." (NIV)
We need to understand that “Adultery is the giving away of anything that exclusively belong to my spouse.”
Can commitment adultery with thought and emotions that belong exclusively to your spouse.
Matt 5:27-28
27 "You have heard that it was said, ’Do not commit adultery.’
28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (NIV)
Once your married your body belongs to you spouse and even holding someone else’s hand is a romantic way is adulterous.
I Corinthians 7:4-5 also teaches:
Mutual Consent
Because our bodies belong to our spouse we cannot with hold ourselves from each other. UNLESS it is by mutual consent. The meaning here is common agreement and the
· Expressed reason is for the purpose of prayer.
· Obviously with sickness, illness and such.
· Clearly ought to practice Christian principle in marriage and be considerate of each other.
This reminds me of
The husband who was told by the marriage counselor to try and be more considerate of his wife. One day he comes home from work. He’s dressed up in a suit, he has cologne on, and he has a bouquet of flowers and a box of candy in his hands. He rings the doorbell and he’s standing there as she opens the door he holds out the flowers and the box of candy.
The wife opens the door takes one look at he standing there and starts crying. In between her sobs she says, "Oh, I can’t believe it! Little Johnny has been throwing up; … the dishwasher just broke; … your parents are coming to visit this weekend and … to top it all off, you come home drunk!
A second major statement that the Bible makes about the stewardship of our bodies is:
II. That my body is the Lord’s
1 Cor 6:13
13 "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"-- but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. (NIV)
A. There is a notion today that my body is mine to do with as I please. Inherit in this is a rebellion against the Lordship of Christ and rejection of the stewardship of our bodies.
Even in the church we tend to place more importance on what the spirit does than the body.
Note the Galatians 2:20 doesn’t say … “The life I live in the spirit, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (NIV)
B. Christ came in a body to redeem us both body and spirit.
1Thes 5:23
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (NIV)
Point – As a disciple of Jesus Christ there is no area that can be with held from his Lordship!
A third major statement the Word of God makes about the stewardship of our bodies is:
III. The highest and greatest purpose of your body is to house the presence of the God!
1 Cor 6:19
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; (NIV)
We are at somewhat of a disadvantage here the 1st century was well acquainted with temples and their purpose.
We need to ask what where the characteristics of a temple?
o It is set apart for the express purpose of worship
o All of its instruments are dedicated to the purpose of bring glory to God
o It is the place where the glory or manifested presence of God came.
Point is in 1 Corinthians 6:19 the next verse the logical or reasonable reaction to our bodies being the temple of God is to honor him with them.
Therefore I must honor God with my body! (But How?)
Rom 12:1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-- this is your spiritual act of worship. (NIV)
· Offer it as a living sacrifice (12:1)
An oxymoron like deafening silence
A sacrifice usually died!
· Offer it’s members in righteous service
Rom 6:13
13 Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
(NIV)
-Tongue
-Hands
-Eyes
-Feet
-Thoughts
· Offer (Yield) as a slave to what is right
Rom 6:19
I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. (NIV)
There is no more noble purpose in the entire universe, there is no more satisfying and nothing is of greater pleasure than to experience the presence of God.
Ps 16:11
11 You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (NIV)
You were created to experience God! Some of you have tried to many things to satisfy the craving of our spirit and nothing lasts, nothing quite fulfills.
Oh there is that quick momentary high of the natural experience but emptiness soon floods your spirit.
The reason is that you were created for a high purpose and destiny and that is to house the presence of God to be his temple.
Altar Call:
· Backslider
· Someone here never walked the aisle before dedication of self to the Lord
Believers that to be better stewards of their bodies
