Sabbath August 5

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Thank you so much Marlene for reminding us that music can Usher us into the very presence of God.

Good to be here with you this morning, family grateful to be in God's house. Again, I am. I am just privileged man. Just to be able to come before you and break the bread of life. This is after all the word that transforms us the word that blesses us and feels our soul gives us what we don't currently have. And so it is a pleasure and a privilege to be able to be on that Journey with you this morning, just by first of all, making just a brief brief reminder, unrelated announcement. If you would just mind, just give me a little more volume, one of my cat appreciate that and then I will just ask just for those of us who have kids, nieces nephews grandkids, don't just sit there. A quick PSA that there are school supplies that we have downstairs, free of charge for your children, make sure that our children are well invested in that. We let them that, you know, that we as a church family care about them and we want to see them, ultimately making it to the kingdom. And we know that education is important in that process and so we are excited to be able to bless you in that way. If that's something that you that you need for you or any kids that you might know.

That being said, the score. Write the word of God together with stanch are free to return to the book of 1st Corinthians 1st Corinthians. 16:19 as you turn their 1st Corinthians 16:19. I just want to remind you that we have been journeying through a series that we've called royalty in training. Come on, say it with me, royalty, in training, royalty, kind of comes with a learning curve. We know that we are named by the name of Christ. It is, we are royalty. But the truth is we got some things that we got to learn some things that we got to learn in that some resources that we have to know how to manage in order to live out our Royal calling. And I believe that, sometimes the reason that we live beneath our potentials because we haven't fully learned what it means to live as royalty. I saw his return to the scriptures in 1st Corinthians, 16:19. I'm going to ask that you just read with me or read along on your Bibles. Hope you have your Bibles and it's there on the screen, it will be there on the screen. I'll read to you in the English Standard Version of the Bible says this, or do you not know? Does the question or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you? You have from God. You are not your own for you. Were bought with a price. Therefore or so glorify God in your body. Play one speak to you, briefly on the subject bodybuilder. Bodybuilder. Pray with me. If you would Heavenly Father, we need you right now. Now we ask that you would just come before us in the form of your holy spirit that you would come inside of us that you would open our hearts to hear you. And then ultimately, oh God, that you would have me step aside and that you would place your word. Before us pray to God, that your son Jesus will be lifted up and exalted in this place and we're praying or guy just for a special move of your Holy Spirit. Got to pray that you would nail some screws to our heart this morning that she would uplift Us by the power of your work. And that when all is said and done, we will have left here better than when we came because we encountered you in your word. Bless us. And we look forward to our encounter with you this morning in Jesus name. That everybody who believe say, amen, and amen. You may be seated in the house of the Lord. You may be seated in the house of the Lord. Talking to you this morning under the subject bodybuilder. Bodybuilder. You might be familiar with the concept of bodybuilding, or the actual people that are bodybuilders, are the ones who have great, big muscles, and they go on stage and actually compete for the size of their muscles. Can you imagine that? Some of us are still trying to get that beach body. And there are people who are competing, just the size of their biceps. I mean, that they Flex their muscles and things just appear out of nowhere. Like what you just took some rocks into stuffed it in there. That is very interesting to me because the truth is that this is a worldwide phenomenon there, people who build their bodies and they tell me they get really into it and they build their bodies overtime to a series of resistance and strength training and we get to a point where their muscles aren't just ordinary really strong. They have these incredible physique, chiseled figures, their muscles are bulging things out of their skin. Sometimes even see their veins popping out of their skin. Ointment. How in the world did you get to be like this? I can't even imagine. Not having those credible incredible work and then they go through a process of training and development. They don't just get up one morning and wake up with muscles after put in the work and they train themselves over the course of days and weeks and months and years and then they compete in public flexing, their muscles, just to demonstrate the result of all their hard work. We call them bodybuilders Bodybuilders the most dangerous. Sometimes you might have recognized that the truth is, they don't even know they're doing it sometimes. But the truth is bodybuilders. They don't only Flex their muscles and train their bodies. And get chiseled figures. Sometimes they just make you feel bad. Come on. I'm telling the truth in here. Like, man, what am I doing with my life?

You look down at yourself in the mirror like wow.

Wow. And you recognize man. There's a vast difference between what they got going on. What's going on in there? Don't worry, you got your suit in your dress so nobody can see it. You're good, you're good, you're good, you're good. That the truth is the truth is that sometimes just looking at them and seeing their incredible physique to make you feel bad about what you got going on in here. Am I telling the truth the truth and answer my question to you. My question to you, is this? What do you see? When you look in the mirror?

What? What do you say? What comes to mind when you spend some time with me, when you get ready in the morning, you wash your face and brush your teeth. What? What do you see? When you look inside of the mirror?

How close do you get? Some of us as we walk away, we don't need one.

What do you see when you look in the mirror? What stares back at you? Are you happy with what you see? Are you proud of what you have? Do you like your body? Have you looked at your body recently? How much time is it UNC? This is the crazy part. The crazy part is, we have spent so much time. We have spent so much time talking about the fact that we cannot be vain or prideful until the truth is that we advise our, our fellow Believers, not to spend too much time in the mirror, you heard that before don't spend too much time in the mirror with the truth is. I believe that the reason that sometimes we don't spend, as much time in the mirror is not because we're trying to be not Pride for Humboldt. Truth is we just don't like what we see. Come on, I'll be real in the house of God this morning. Sometimes the reason we get away from this so quickly. It's just a dumb gray hair.

It's just I'm just too skinny.

I got rolls in places, they shouldn't be, imma be imma be real. But the truth is the truth is that sometimes we don't even like what we see in the mirror, sometimes we we going to come over the course of time to wrestle with and grapple with and struggle with our body image.

Since we've come to this point where we see what we see in the mirror and we're not proud of it, we don't like it and that it's a daily. Reminder. Sometimes what we're not doing, what we are eating, what we shouldn't be eating what? We're not having at the breakfast table at the dinner table, to remind us of who we really are. What we're not doing in the house of God. And the truth is that many of us have bad body image. Believe bad things about our body. And today, what I want to do a case here that God doesn't just value your spirituality

He values your body.

I want to kiss you because the truth is, we have missed this so many times that God, doesn't your mind, or your spirit, or your intellectual capability, he values your body. Bible says that he chose to get down on his hands and knees. So to speak in the Bible says that the Lord formed the man of the Dust of the ground. That was he built the body?

Hey, breathe through his nostrils, the breath of life. You are a spot for. You shall love the Lord. Your God with all your heart. And with all your soul, and with all your, might all your strength, all your body. Romans 12:1, I appeal to you, therefore, Brothers by the mercies of God, to present your body, a Living Sacrifice. Holy and acceptable to die, which is your spiritual worship, your reasonable Service 1st, Corinthians 12:27. Now, you speaking of the entire Corpus of the body of Christ you on the body of Christ, You are the body of Christ. I just, let me Compares. His people his church to the body that Schumann body. You are the body of Christ and individually members of it. He was 10:5 consequently 1/10. When price rather came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings, you have not desired, but a body, you have prepared for me. Don't you see that? God. Values, your body keep values. What you see when you look in the mirror. And I usually get this because sometimes we just forget that the body is valuable to God. And this right here, man, this is for the person who looks in the mirror and all you can see is what needs to be changed. Is it important to look in the mirror and all you can see is what needs to be nipped and tucked in relaxed tattooed Pearson covered with makeup and covered over all you can see what needs to be changed and renewed and liposuction didn't made up and everything that needs to just go out of the window. And nobody needs to see that. I'm talking to you right now. The person who has a bad body image, who looks in the mirror and is not proud of what they see. I need you to see that when you have trouble believing that your body is valuable, you have to start. Look, stop looking at yourself in a critical matter. I just go to the gym. Let me explain to you, explain to you. I'm not telling you to go to Planet Fitness or the YMCA to go to the gym so you can see the bodybuilder. Do you understand? I'mma tell you to look at those people who do 27 wraps with 180 lb bodybuilder, need to look at the one who who literally Adams body from the dust of the ground. The one who formed your body in your mother's womb, the one who crafted every single fingerprint that is on your fingers, in your mother's womb, that's the body. Go to give me to be looking at all. You got understand. It's a bodybuilder. In other words, you understand that he built your body, everything that you see in the mirror is a result of what God built. If you want to see his muscles, you just got to look at how, how? Well, he corrected your figure if you want to see him Flex, just go ahead and check out your smile if you want to see his games. Just remember that you were just a few pounds at Birth and now look at you, if you want to see his chiseled figure check out the carvings on your fingerprints. If you want to see his impossible stamina just remember that. The devil might have tried and tried. What your heart still hasn't stopped beating. I'm telling you that God is a bodybuilder and every time you look in the mirror, you're looking at the artwork of God.

TC God is a bodybuilder and he has crafted you wonderfully and fearfully In His Image. And so I need you to send that God has your physical body. The question is, why did not go through all the trouble of creating your specific body? Why did he go through all the trouble of making fingerprints? Add pores and heron. Skinning all the things that make you who you are.

Why did why did you go to all the trouble of creating your specific body in the dance was very simple dancers, that God is interested in all of you. Some of us have gotten to the point where we start believing, subconsciously or consciously that God is somehow interested in any part of us. He's interested in my spirituality of course, he's interested. Maybe in my ability to understand the word, my mental capability, but but he's not really that interested in my body. Value this thing. Lunch break this idea that God is in interested in one part of you. But not all of you. The others given us and that God literally created you as a composite human being. She made every single aspect of your nature and the truth is that God loves all of you. We're actually the one to compartmentalize.

So, we'll take our spirituality and put it here and take our mental health and put it here. And we'll take our emotional life and set it over here on the corner. Nobody wants to talk about that. Will make sure that we keep everything separate, but God is interested in all of you. She got values your body and he wants you to Value it as well. Check this out. Your dad has gone for the length of going to the Plan of Salvation and Redemption. Not just to redeem your soul. But he's going to restore your body. So that God has promised, not just to somehow get Kevin to you in Escape Plan. That when you die, you somehow just escaped off into the Cosmos. On this lecture Halls of heaven, but he is Promised the incredible, incredible promise of Resurrection, which means that your physical body will be lifted up restored and recreated in the image of God and the physical body will be the one that's in the presence of God cares about your body and what you actually believe about what you see in the mirror actually has Eternal impact. I just have to mention this because the truth is it. So many of us, especially our younger younger. People are our teenagers and young adults, and perhaps, even those of us who have made it all the way into adulthood, and still haven't dealt with the bad body image that we carry with us. Then there are so many of us who are on this journey of trying to love ourselves. And forcing ourselves to just deal with what we see in the mirror. We don't really like it, but we can't say that out loud. I want to talk to somebody cuz sometimes we have, we have believe, certain things about our body. They have caused us to treat it in certain ways that are unhealthy. She's a bad vicious cycle that if you believe your body is bad or worthless or not, valuable the truth is you begin to consciously or subconsciously treat your body in ways that are bad or worthless or not valuable, you're going to stand in the way that you believe about your body actually will translate into how you treat your body. And this is the reason why so many of us have struggle with finding our way out of addictions and out of substance abuse. Because the truth is that we have sometimes thought about ourselves less than what we are. And then treat our bodies accordingly. And there's so many of our teenagers and especially our young girls especially unrealistic, expectations of what they're supposed to look like. And it causes them to begin treating. Their body is actually damaging and hurtful and in the long-term will actually destroy them and the truth is so all of us in some way with her great or small have found ourselves on the paths of really destruction. Because we believe bad things about our body. We believe that ice cream ain't going to kill us this one time. I'm talking to myself.

Nobody's going to know if I get this family-size bag.

But what you believe about your body hear me now hear me. It has Eternal impact Don't want you to see this concept that we know as anthropological dualism. Is this idea that was created from the Greek. The separation of soul and body. The idea that the human being the nature of humanity, is it away dualistic creature? So, that you have a body? I bet you have a soul. And you're so really, it's just how I was by your body. In other words, your body don't really matter. It's just a vehicle to carry your soul through life. Your soul is, what really matters are. So is your personality? Your soul is in the heart of you. The deepest part of this is an idea that you are actually a dualistic being in in the sense that you are part soul and part body Dynamic. We're literally you start to believe then that your soul can be separated from your body. As we have this incredible, incredible dangerous idea that you will be separated from your body and Preserve in your soul. See, this causes a lot of drama because the truth is that, when you believe that, your soul can be separated from your body. When you believe that you're not, you're not a single composite unit, you're actually a mixture of two different things that can be separated and will be separated at death. You actually realize that your body has no real spiritual value. In other words, your body is actually worthless just carry your soul and you can send that to over the world at that time. It was his idea that your body was actually sinful and Earthly and fleshly and your soul was the prize possession. Your spirit was the one that you had to value and feed and take care of and you're going to send that people would literally engage and things that were devastating to their body, because they believe that their body was not worth anything, it was just the vehicle that carry their soul. I thought you had people who would drinking, you have people who engage in all kinds of illicit, sex and you have people who do all kinds of things to the body, cutting it up and marking it up and doing all kinds of things piercing and making holes that that you can't even read all kinds of things to their body because they believe that the body ultimately would be getting gotten rid of. It was it was sinful and specially and the only thing that was valuable about them was their soul. Bring juice in the Bible, paints a completely different picture about the nature of humanity. To the Bible doesn't say that you have a soul carried about in a human body that will eventually be destroyed, the Bible that you are a soul. You can say that. The Bible says that in the men's body from the dust of the ground, he bends down and breathed into his nostrils, the Breath of Life. And the Bible said something incredible. The Bible says that man became a living soul. He gave man a soul inside of the body it says that after he had formed the body and he put the breath of the spirit in the body that composite unit created a soul. In other words, you are, you don't have a soul, you are a soul. Let me make it clear to you, you remember that that the actual chemical, the chemical description of water is H2O, you know, how much you have hydrogen molecules, two of them and then you have an oxygen molecule, but the truth is that even though they are three different molecules, you can't really have water without all three. In other words, in other words, it's, it's H2O for a reason because if you were to take one H away, it wouldn't be water. If you were to take the old away, it wouldn't be water. If you were to take 28 away, it wouldn't be. The reason that it's water is because all three of the units are together and they can't be separated and the same way as with your body and your soul, or your spirit. The truth is, you can't separate your soul from your spirit and still exists. The truth is, you don't have a soul house in the human body. You are a soul created by the composite of body and the Breath of God. I think this is incredible because as dependency lotion author says, he says, anthropological dualism has done such a serious harm in weakening, our blessed hope of Christ apparent help us, Lord Has Done such a serious harm, and weakening our blessed, hope of Christ. A parent and in distorting our understanding of the world to come. How, how, what do you mean? What do you mean? Because the truth is, if you believe that the body can be separate from the soul that the body is freshly and sinful, and not come join with this, this composite unit of a soul, then it makes no sense. That Jesus would come back in bodily form. It makes no sense that the clouds will be rolled back as a scroll and our Lord will appear in the heavens. In other words, the entirety of the Resurrection is made nullified and voice because who cares about a body It only makes sense if you recognize that you are a composite unit of both breath and body. That comprises, the soul. He goes on to say, it is Foster, many false dichotomies, including a negative view of the body in contrast to the soul and a concept of salvation as an interior experience in my soul rather than Total Transformation. is that all you got it and you see this There are so many people who are making a shipwreck of their lives. Because they believed it, all that matters is there. So If imma say it on the inside, nothing else matters I can eat. Like I want to, I can drink like I want to I can smoke like I want to I can have sex whenever I want and with whomever I want to because it's just the body but the truth is it's actually damaging to both body and soul to the truth is the truth is that your soul here? Your entire being is completely interconnected as a single unit and when you have a negative view of the body, it causes you to damage your entire being see what you believe about your body impacts the way it rather. What you do with it. It is your body is not relevant for Redemption. There's no real. Spiritual value in spiritual need to take care of it in the first place. But the truth is that it's actually a body. That's at the center of the Redemption story.

22. The Bible says Hebrews 10:1 price came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings. You have not desired, but a body, you have prepared for me. And you can send that Jesus and taking on a shoe in the flesh with initiating, the salvation of humanity with his body. So that he came to this earth and experience the pain that you and I feel with his body, he lived our life perfectly and senselessly in his body and then when it came down to it, he gave himself up to be crucified on a Rugged Cross in his body. And its, I praise the Lord that he didn't just Escape into the heavens when his body died. But he laid down in the grave in his body. And he said, you might destroy this temple with him. Three days. I'll raise it right back up. I need you to see that. The resurrection story is centered on the body of Jesus Christ. Is his body and I love this because the truth is that he built his body when he came to Earth, and when he laid down in that to me, just rebuilt it all back over again. On the third day, he said to go ahead and put the lid back together again, and the sales start working again and everything just build back up. And you understand, that he is building his body. In the grave, I want to encourage you in. This is for the person who is seeing their body in a negative light and had body, bad body image, and it seeing themselves as being broken and bruised, and worthless, and not valuable. I need to speak to you. I don't know. I just remind you that we serve a bodybuilding. God help me on a spirit that God didn't just create the first time. I said, well, you messed it up. You're done. He is still in the business of building body. He builds broken body. He builds bruised body. He feels pretty bodies, he builds. Nobody's daughter is a bodybuilding. God.

And he didn't just build. It hear me. Hear me. Hear me. He didn't just build it. He bought it.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you? Home, you have from God and you are not your own because you were bought with a price.

When manufacturers build something. They sell it.

When Jesus Built your body. He went back and bought it back.

You'll be part of a thing about bodybuilders is that they don't just go through this process of strength training. What helps them to get? So big. And so chiseled. And so muscular is that they actually spend a lot of time and effort and money building their body with the right nutrients. So they spend big time money on different kinds of protein in nutrients and Shakes and drinks and Evan. And if that's not enough, they'll go on this, spend thousands of dollars on exercise equipment, in training, exercise equipment in coaches, and everything they need to build up. If it's looking to build up, I mean, sometimes astronomical amounts of money just to build their body up to a point. Well, they can have the big muscles in the Chisel form in the big figure, they're willing because they value their bodies. So much to spend all the money that you can buy on their body.

And you see that God?

Wow, he gave us what was perfectly fine? I want so many times, If we're honest, man, If we're honest, If we're honest, the challenges that the shortcomings that we see in the mirror, and that we have in our bodies are sometimes our own fault.

But God was gracious and merciful enough to say, not only what I build it. I'm going to buy it and I'm going to buy it at a price. In other words, I'm not just going to buy it for anything cheap. I'm actually going to pay for it with my own.

Jesus, when he died on the cross and his resurrected, again, literally takes his broken, bruised pierced body. Back into the Heavenly Chorus at the right hand of the father. Could God, do use your body, your body and I don't want you to hear anything different from anybody else. Don't listen to social media. Don't look at the magazines. Don't look anywhere for your worth, except for the price that got paid for your body.

Because he paid the price and it's our Glory. It's our joy. It's our responsibility to glorify God in our body. So, my card with you this morning is to treat your body as if it were the prized possession of the god of the universe. Because it is

It is. It is. That gray hair. It is That that, that bony skinny form it is. Don't roll that. You don't like counting it is. It is it is God values, your body. I just want you to evaluate just half as much as he does. So as I close, I just want to get somebody opportunity who is saying listen, I want to help I want God to help me value my body, the way that he does, I'm tired of abusing it with substances and with lack of sleeping with lack of exercise and I'm tired of making this this this body seem like it's just the worst part of me. And as long as I'm right with the Lord long as I come to church and I pray and have a good spiritual experience, the body doesn't matter to me anymore. I want to value my body the way that God values it. I want to treat it like a tooth prized possession because it is if that's you you're standing to your feet right now. I know that God didn't just die for a part of me for a soul or my mind. He wants to value my body. I want to Value it. Just like he does. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord has never had his battery eyes closed, even as you're standing, I want to give somebody in Opportunity who has never perhaps heard that God loves your body. He values it created and he built it. He's a bodybuilding. God and you're saying, listen, I want to give my entire life. I want to walk this journey with the one who was intentional enough to love me even when I'm not what I think I should be. That's you right now. You're saying, I want to get my whole life to Jesus take the next step is and whether the Bible studies or baptism I want to have a conversation with the past, whatever it is, I want to help you be on that train. I want you to do, just go ahead and tell your neighbor, excuse me, go to sleep. After I meet me right down here. I want to Pray with you. Oportun.

To walk this journey with Jesus. And allow him to bless you. Not just in your soul, your spirit of your mind and your body.

I still believe that God is a bodybuilding. He's had a bad. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. You had a bad body image, you thought of yourself. In the most horrible ways, you said some of the most horrible nasty things to yourself.

Those days are over those days over God values, your body. So you're saying I want to go all the way with Jesus. Go ahead and take take this time to do not drive me right down here. Give me your hand to guard your heart. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. His eyes closed right now. You're still in decisions in your heart. God forgive me for the way that I am in my body.

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

Heavenly Father. God, where your people are standing sitting lifting our hands to you right now. in full recognition that you have created our body, and the truth is God, made us some things about our body, that we don't really like Yeah, there's some there's some pain. this looks, there's some shapes that are some Baptism, lack thereof. Do some hair. The same like they're all got to some things. We just don't feel comfortable with But God, we acknowledge that you the creator of the universe.

The Bible says that you like you do with Jeremiah formed us in our mother's womb. And it's this body got that you're going to redeem and restore and raised again to be with you forever. So that we ask that you would help us right now. Help us to value our body to treat it as if it was your prized possession because we recognize that it is And then. I want to ask just for those who are stealing in their hearts, that decision to go next step with you to go deeper I'm asking that you bless them. Send them your Holy Spirit right now. Enable them. Oh God, by the power of your Holy Spirit to have a completely different view of themselves. Because they're in Christ, Jesus. God, give them what they need, and power them walk before them. Send your angels to excela. Strengthen, Campground about that place a hedge of protection around that. And we asked for God, that you would be lifted up and glorified in our bodies. It's in the name of Jesus, the Risen physically body, Lord, that we pray. Amen. Praise the Lord.

Fresh like you.

That's not how.

Navigate to Firestone on 98th, man. I'm a little stand up for the benediction, please.

Now unto him, who is able to keep you from falling? And took father's fault this before shown to the only wise God, our savior Majesty of dominion and power now and forever. More than a man, please be seated for a moment of meditation.

Really quickly family as we get ready to dismiss, I just want to ask for those who are a Ministry, leader for part of a Ministry team. And I mean, if you do virtually anything as leader here at Bethesda, I want to be with you really quickly me with you right here at these first couple of rolls, I have a quick conversation just five or 10 minutes and then we will dismiss we will dismiss happy Sabbath everyone, God bless you, God loves you and we do too.

Amen.