If you don't know me, my name is Kevin. I'm one of the leaders here, and we are going to dive into our sermon for today.
I want to introduce it a little bit, and then Rachel's going to read the scripture to us.
The human body is the most fascinating and yet infinitely complex, whatever you want to call it, piece of machinery, ingenuity, or creation.
When I was in high school, I didn't do very well at high school at all for two reasons.
One, I didn't have the brains to do very well.
And two, I was a very terrible student. I didn't work hard.
But if I had the brains, and if I had worked hard and done well at school,
the only job that might have rivaled my interest in being a pastor would have been to be a medical doctor.
I would have loved to have been able to be a doctor.
When I was at university, I stayed in a house or an apartment with a med student, another doctor.
He was in his final years of med school.
And every night at dinner, I would say,
Okay, Justin, tell me, what did you get up to today?
What patients did you see?
What diseases did you diagnose?
What surgeries did you watch?
What diagnoses did you offer to your professors as you were doing your hospital rounds?
I loved asking my buddy Justin about med school.
And I wish I could have been a doctor.
But God did not equip me to do that.
The human body is a fascinating and remarkable piece of creation.
And even if most of us don't really know anything of what's going on inside of us,
here are a bunch of facts for us.
Did you know that your body has 100,000 miles of blood vessels in your body?
If you were to string those all together, that's halfway between here and the moon of blood vessels in your body.
Every second, you produce 25 million new cells in your body.
Amazingly, the human eye can detect between 7 and 10 million different colors.
I'm going to ask Professor Chris Leung to verify that later after the service.
He's an eye professor.
But that's what I read.
7 to 10 million different colors your eye can determine.
And Bill Bryson from his book, The Body, he says this,
The most remarkable part about your body is your DNA.
You have a meter of it stacked into every cell in your body.
And so many cells that if you formed all the DNA in your body into a single strand,
it would stretch 10 billion miles, which is beyond Pluto.
Think about it.
There's enough of you to leave the solar system.
You are, in the most literal sense, cosmic.
Bill Bryson.
Okay?
And so far from being the product of random chance,
our bodies are nothing short of utterly remarkable and amazing.
And the more our scientific technology advances, the more we discover,
the more we're able to find out and look into the smallest pieces of the human body,
the more we are blown away and astounded all that goes into it.
I just recently read Peter Atiyah's book called Outlive,
and it was way too technical for me.
But just thinking about at a sub-cellular level,
all the different bits and pieces that are going on,
that are opening cell walls and closing cell walls
and lying protein molecules in and other molecules out,
it's absolutely astounding what our human bodies do.
And so for the next six weeks,
we're going to pause our series on 1 Corinthians,
and we're going to do the series on the human body.
And we're going to be looking at the idea of what does the Bible say about our bodies.
Now, typically at Watermark,
we want to systematically work through books of the Bible,
like 1 Corinthians or Ephesians.
And we call this expositional preaching.
It's the best way to find out what is God saying to us.
But from time to time,
we want to take one topic, one theme,
and look at it systematically across the Bible and say,
what does the whole Bible say about this theme?
And so for the next six weeks,
we're going to look at our physical bodies.
And we're going to look at,
what does it mean that our bodies are created by God?
What does it mean that our bodies suffer and are broken
and are subject to pain and disease?
What does it mean that our bodies and our identity,
our bodies in heaven and glory,
will we have a body in heaven one day?
And finally, we're going to look at our bodies and gender.
Now, if you're in the youth,
if you're in high school,
you're going to be part of us for the month of July,
hopefully for the whole series.
And I hope that this is really applicable to you
as you think about what does God have to say about you
and your physical body
and the way that God has made you.
Okay, so to do that,
we're going to look at Psalm 139.
And I'm going to call Rachel up
to come and read our scripture reading for us today.
It should be in your bulletin or in your Bible.
Grab one of those, open that up,
and let's listen to the scripture reading for today
from Psalm 139.
Good morning.
Feel free to read along with me
from the screen or from the bulletin.
Psalm 139 reads,
O Lord, you've searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up.
You discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in behind and before
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.
It is high.
I cannot attain it.
Where shall I go from your spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there.
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, surely the darkness shall overcome me
and the light about me be night.
Even the darkness is not dark to you.
The night is bright as the day.
For darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts.
You knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works.
My soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw me, my unformed substance.
In your book were written every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God.
How vast is the sum of them.
If I would count them,
they are more than the sand.
I awake and I am still with you.
Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God.
Oh, men of blood, depart from me.
They speak against you with malicious intent.
Your enemies take your name in vain.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with complete hatred.
I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart.
Try me and know my thoughts.
And see if there be any grievous way in me.
And lead me in the way everlasting.
Okay, great.
Thank you, Rachel.
Let me pray for us briefly.
Father God, as we come to your word,
we want to see what your word has to say.
As we think about this topic, Lord,
we really do want to think your thoughts after you.
Even here at the end of Psalm 139,
David expresses the desire to think your thoughts after you,
to love what you love and to hate what you hate.
God, we want to be the same.
And we want to think your thoughts.
So help us to do that, God.
In this topic that is so conflicted and challenging for many of us,
I want you to help us to really see ourselves
at the way you've made us,
to appreciate what you've made us,
to love what you've made.
And God, to think rightly and biblically and correctly in this way.
So I pray, God, as we look at your word,
speak to us and encourage us.
Lord, those of us that maybe are downcast,
I want you to encourage us from your word this morning.
In your great name we pray.
Amen.
Just to say, sorry, I meant to say earlier,
there are a couple of copies of this book on the piano
called What God Has to Say About Our Bodies by Sam Aubrey.
It's a really great book.
I encourage you to grab one of those if you want to find out more.
Okay, so I wonder how you feel about your body.
I think it's safe to say that most of us have a conflicted relationship
with our physical bodies.
And I think there's three reasons for that.
The first one is personal.
Most of us feel personally conflicted about our bodies.
Most of us, if you had a magic wand that could change any one thing about your body,
most of us would grab that wand and want to do something.
Maybe you want to be a bit taller.
You want to be a bit shorter.
Maybe you want a smaller nose.
You want straighter teeth.
Maybe you want that back pain that you suffer with all the time to go away.
You want that irritable gut to be cleared up.
Some part of our bodies, we all struggle with to varying degrees.
Now, some of it can be humorous, like my receding hairline.
And we can laugh and joke about that.
Or if you're my kids, you can cry about it.
But for others of us, it's a bit more serious.
There's deep pain in our bodies.
We live with constant pain, some of us.
Some of us, maybe the way we feel about ourselves causes stress or anxiety or angst.
So there's personal conflict.
There's also cultural conflict.
I think our culture is very confused about how do we think about our physical bodies.
On the one hand, our culture tells us our bodies are nothing really particularly special.
They have very little bearing on who we are and on our identity.
And we're told that our most true self, who you really are, is who you feel to be.
This is obviously a huge assumption behind the transgender movement, right?
That your makeup, your physical body has zero bearing on who you are.
But who you really are is who you most feel yourself to be inside.
And so we're told that our bodies are actually nothing at all.
It doesn't matter.
You can chop it.
You can change it.
It's completely irrelevant.
But on the other hand, our culture also tells us that our bodies are almost everything.
And that place such high premium on our physical bodies that you almost culture attaches one's identity and self-worth to it.
And so just think about how much pressure and how much stress goes into people thinking about the way that we look.
Or the way we come across.
Or how successful we are.
Or think about the insane amount of money spent in the cosmetic industry.
Either cosmetic surgery or cosmetic products.
And so on one hand, our culture says, your body's nothing.
It doesn't matter.
Just chop and change it.
On the other hand, it says, it's everything.
It's everything.
And you should put a lot of attention to it.
So we live in this constant conflict.
But then I think a third reason why we feel so conflicted is, for those of us that are Christians and followers of Jesus and take the Bible seriously,
I think we're conflicted about what the Bible says.
And part of that is because we feel that the Bible places so much emphasis on our hearts and our inner life that maybe God is not that interested in our outer world and our physical bodies.
I think of how Jesus will say, or how the proverb says, guard your heart, for above all it is the wellspring of life.
And so one author put it like this.
He said, most Christians tend to see the soul as the true core of who we are.
And the body is just an empty vessel that will one day die while our souls will live on forever in heaven.
And of course, we read things like in the New Testament that Paul says, he seems to contrast the flesh versus the spirit.
And he says, put to death the things of the flesh, but so to the spirit.
And so we tend to think the immaterial is good and the material is bad.
Now, just by the way, when Paul is doing that, he's using flesh to talk about our sinful nature and the spirit to talk about what is alive to God.
And he's saying, don't sow to your sinful nature, sow to your relationship with God.
The contrast is not material versus immaterial.
It's what is done in rebellion against God versus what is life lived in surrender to God.
And so for all these reasons, personal conflict, cultural conflict, biblical, theological conflict, I think we feel confused about how are we meant to think about our bodies.
So let's consider the scripture.
And if you've got the scripture in front of you, open it up.
I want you to see something.
Psalm 39 is made up of 24 verses and it's broken up into four sections.
Each section has six verses.
And so the first section, verses one to six, David speaks about God's perfect knowledge of us.
He says, oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up.
You discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my line down.
You're acquainted with all of my ways.
God says, David says, everything about us.
Our thoughts, our moods, our emotions, our private actions, our secret desires, our conflicted feelings are perfectly and intricately and meticulously known by the sovereign God who is Lord of everything.
He knows absolutely everything there is to know about us.
He knows us better than we know ourselves.
He says that even before a thought is, even before a word is on my tongue, behold, you know it altogether.
Then in the second section, David takes comfort in the fact that there's no place in life, no experience in life, physical, mental or emotional, that is beyond God's reach or God's control.
So he says, where shall I go from your spirit?
Where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to the heavens, you're there.
If I go down to Sheol, the place of the dead, you are there.
There's no place, physical, mental, emotional, no sphere or experience of life that is beyond God's reach and ability and interest to be involved in that.
Your child is sick.
You lose your job.
You feel physical ache and pain.
Diagnosed with cancer.
Your loved one passes away.
God is there with you in that time and season.
But then in the third section is the section we're really going to look at today.
And here David says, the reason why we can be confident that God knows every sphere and experience of life and God knows us so deeply and personally is because he made us.
Look at what verse 13 says.
It says, for or because, it says, God, you know me perfectly and you're always with me.
Why?
Because you formed my inward parts.
Those minute subcellular particles that until recently we didn't even have any idea existed.
God knows every single one of them and he's known them for thousands of years and every single human being.
You know my inward parts.
You, God, knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you for I'm fearfully, wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your creative works.
My soul knows it very well.
My frame, that means my body, is not hidden from you.
When I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Think about that.
David is saying, before anyone knew of my existence, before your mom even knew that she was pregnant with you,
when all you were was a tiny zygote, I think that's the right way of saying it,
a minuscule cell that multiplied and multiplied and multiplied and multiplied and eventually formed the biological process to become you,
in that tiny moment, God knew you, he planned you, he formed you, he knew exactly what he's doing to bring about you.
Intricately woven the depths.
Verse 16,
And the point that David is making here is that our physical bodies are not random.
They're not arbitrary.
They're not just sperm and egg came together and voila, out popped you.
God was intricately involved in bringing together those two parts and forming your DNA in who you are and bringing you about.
Everything we are, including our physical bodies, is the consequence of the eternal, sovereign, creator God's intentional care.
There's a Dutch theologian called Herman Bavinck.
He lived many years ago.
And listen to how he says it.
He says,
It is the essence of humanity to be both physical and conscious.
The body is not a prison, but a marvelous piece of art from which the hand of God Almighty,
from the hand of God Almighty, and just as much the essence of humanity as the soul.
So notice what Bavinck is saying there.
He's saying we typically think our body is just this outward box, but the real part of me is my soul.
That's who I really am.
And the box will get discarded one day and my soul will live on forever.
And he's saying, no, actually a human being is made up of body and soul.
Both of these together are what God has made you and are intricately part of who you are.
Now contrast that to the view of our Buddhist friends,
who typically would say the goal of life is to reach nirvana or enlightenment,
that state of life where we are free from the desires and the entrapment of the body.
We want to be free from the body and reach that state of enlightenment
where we're not constrained by our physical desires and our physical body.
But Biblical Christianity says, no, actually your body is an important part of who you are,
just as much as your soul.
Here's another author, Kelly Capuch, writes and he says,
Unlike Plato's philosophy, Plato said the soul was trapped in a box.
The Bible frames original human goodness within our bodily experience, not apart from it.
Our physicality is not a problem to be overcome.
It's a gift essential to our existence, our essence, our being.
The Bible presents a unified picture of the whole person, body and soul,
with communion with God and others,
always meant to take place in and through our physical bodies,
not apart from them.
This is our created state.
This will be our ultimate hope.
Now there's a lot in there.
We're going to pick up on some of this over the next few weeks.
But two things I want you to notice that Kelly Capuch is saying.
The first is this.
He says,
The physical body is not a consequence of sin entering in the world.
Like we were made these disembodied immaterial beings.
Sin entered the world and now we've got a physical body.
And one day we're going to go back to an immaterial disembodied being in the heavens.
Actually our physical bodies is part of how God created us
and something we're going to get in glory, in heaven.
You know in heaven you're going to have a physical body.
And so our physical bodies are not just something fallen and broken
we've got to put up with in this world,
but one day Jesus is going to come and deliver us from it.
That's actually part of how God has created us.
This is our created state.
It will be our ultimate hope and glory.
And then the second thing he says is,
The Bible presents a unified picture, body and soul, of one human being.
And what this means is that our bodies are not incidental or arbitrary to our Christian faith.
The point is, God is not only interested in the immaterial parts of our lives,
but in the totality of us.
Body, mind and soul.
They all belong to Him.
They're created by Him.
We are to enjoy Him, to be used in His worship and His service.
Now we're going to come back to this in a few weeks time,
but just look at these two scriptures that reinforce this.
Look at Romans chapter 1.
Paul writes, he says,
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters,
by the mercies of God,
present your bodies to God
as living sacrifices,
holy and acceptable to God.
This is your spiritual worship.
Paul doesn't just say,
present your souls, just your heart to God.
No, present your body to God.
This is part of your worship.
Or in Corinthians, Paul writes, he says,
The body is not meant for immorality or sin,
but for the Lord.
And the Lord is for your body.
God raised Jesus bodily.
He will also raise us up bodily by His power.
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ
and temples of the Holy Spirit?
You are not your own.
You were bought with a price.
So glorify God,
not just with your heart,
but with your body.
And so the point here is that
all of us,
our heart, soul, mind, our bodies
are part of who we are,
part of our being,
part of what God is interested in,
part of what we meant to worship Him.
We belong to Him.
I think as Christians,
sometimes we can take our thinking
more from Plato and culture
than from the scriptures.
And we tend to think of,
the immaterial disembodied
as good and holy and righteous
and the body as bad,
material as bad.
And in scripture,
it says the opposite.
And many commentators have pointed out
that when God Almighty,
the eternal uncreated one,
wanted to come to earth
to redeem us and rescue us
and save us from our sin
and from hell
and to bring us back
into relationship with Him,
how did He come?
He came as an embodied being.
Jesus Christ came.
John 1.14 reminds us,
the Word became flesh
and dwelt amongst us
and we have seen His glory.
Friends, in order for Jesus to come to us,
He had to become a human being.
In order for Jesus to be a human being,
He had to take on a physical body.
And so while most religions,
especially religions here in Asia,
Eastern religions,
want to flee from the body,
Christianity says,
no, actually you need to embrace it.
This is an important part of who you are.
I think this is one of the reasons,
if I'm honest,
why in the West,
Asian religions like Buddhism
and transcendental meditation
and even yoga to a degree
are growing so quickly
because in the West,
we feel so conflicted about our bodies.
We don't like our bodies.
We feel the aches and the pains.
We are comparing ourselves to social media.
We feel so conflicted with our bodies
and Eastern religions
typically give us a way
of escaping the body
and thinking,
the body doesn't matter.
You can hate your body,
change your body,
just if you meditate,
what's in your soul
is what really counts.
I think that's why
Eastern religions are growing
so much in the West.
But Christianity says,
no, your body is part of who you are.
Jesus died bodily
or came bodily,
died bodily,
rose again bodily,
ascended into heaven bodily,
is seated at the right hand
of the Father bodily
and will return again
in a physical body
and will bring us,
give us renewed bodies
and take us to a renewed creation
where we will live
in physical bodies.
And so the point of all this
is that our physical bodies
are not secondary.
They're not inconsequential.
This is part of what it means
to be human.
Our bodies
and our humanity.
Now here's the second thing.
Our bodies
and God's delight.
So look again
at Psalm 139 with me
and we're going to look at
verses
13 onwards.
Look at what
David writes here.
He says,
You formed my inward parts.
You knitted me together
in my mother's womb.
I praise you
for I'm fearfully
and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works.
My soul knows it
very well.
I remember the day
that we brought
our first daughter,
Sierra,
home from the hospital.
And she was born
on the 4th of April.
This isn't her,
actually.
This is Google.
Sorry
to disappoint.
I remember
standing outside
the hospital.
Sierra was in this
little carrier thing
and I went to go
get the car
and driving her home
and the fear
and the dread
of the responsibility
of taking care
of this most fragile
and most precious thing
we've ever laid
our hands on.
Right?
And I've never driven
so slowly
and so carefully
in all my life.
The thought,
the dread
of what happens
if I do something wrong.
I can't imagine
what it's like
in Hong Kong
if you have a baby
and then you've got
to take a taxi home.
Right?
You want to tell
the taxi driver,
listen,
just slow down,
buddy,
just careful here.
We've got a newborn baby.
Maybe if you haven't
had a child
but you've got
a new car,
right?
And the first time
you drive that car
you drive like
a 90-year-old granny
that's just so careful
and you're looking
all around you.
Why do we do that?
Things that are precious
to us
we treat with a sense
of dread,
a sense of awe
for fear of damaging them
or doing anything wrong.
Well,
David says here
that we are fearfully made
and the opposite
of this,
of course,
is something that's
dispensable
or worthless.
So,
you order something
from Taobao
and you get a whole bunch
of packaging
and what do you do
with the packaging?
You slice it
and you rip it
and you throw it aside
and you trample it
and maybe you use it
to clean up the dog's mess
or something,
you know.
It's worthless.
It's dispensable.
So,
you treat it like trash.
David here says
our bodies
are fearfully made.
There's a sense
of awe
and trepidation
about them.
They are so precious.
We don't treat them
just arbitrarily
or like trash.
They are awesomely made.
And then he says here
that they have been
wonderfully
or marvelously made.
I think the most
astounding thing
about this
is when you consider
what the Bible
has to say
about creation
in Genesis 1 and 2.
So,
the Bible's account
of creation
is not meant
to be a scientific
description
of how exactly
the world was formed.
The Bible's description
of creation
is who created the world
not how it was created.
And,
Genesis 1 and 2
the six days
before God rested
are broken up
into two parts.
Days 1 to 3
God is creating
the world.
Days 4 and 6
God is filling creation.
Okay?
These two parts.
And then on day 7
God rests from his creation
and enters into his rest
to enjoy it.
Now,
incidentally,
day 7
is the only one
in Genesis 1 and 2
where it doesn't say
it is morning and evening
and God
and the seventh day.
Right?
So,
remember day 1
morning and evening
the first day.
Morning and evening
the second day.
Et cetera,
et cetera.
The seventh day
doesn't say that.
Why?
Because the seventh day
hasn't ended.
God is still
at rest
and he invites us
into his rest
by being in a relationship
with him.
But,
so,
but the creation order
has a flow to it.
It starts off wide,
it starts off broad
and it narrows
and it climaxes
and climaxes
and becomes more
and more important
and the climax of creation
is
day 6
human beings.
So,
day 1
God made this
and it was good.
Day 2
God made it
and it was good.
It was good.
God makes humanity
and he says
it was very good.
The climax of the whole
of creation
is mankind,
male and female,
you and I
made in God's image.
It's the high point,
the pinnacle of creation.
But,
but think about
the totality
of creation.
Think about how
insanely
intricate
and majestic
and glorious
creation is.
I mean,
think of what
David says
in Psalm 8.
When God creates
the galaxies
and the stars
and the universe,
God's point of creation
is that humanity
made in his image
is even more important
than the galaxies
and the stars.
It is climactic
above that.
And so,
in Psalm 8,
David says,
when I look at
your heavens,
the work of your
fingerprints,
the moon
and the stars
and if David
was made today,
he might say,
solar systems
and galaxies
and nebulae
and supernovas.
What is man
that you're mindful of him?
The son of man
that you care for him.
You have made us
a little lower
than heavenly beings.
Just a little lower
than angels.
You've crowned us
with glory and honor.
You have given mankind
dominion
over the works
of your hands.
You have put
all things
under his feet.
David is saying,
friends,
I'm not a cosmologist
by any stretch
of the imagination.
But one of the things
I'm astounded by
is the images
of outer space.
And especially
in the last few years
as the James Webb
telescope has been
sending back images
of space.
I think we've got
a picture here
of this Carina Nebula.
It's 7,500 light years
away.
This is a star
forming,
star birthing
kind of galaxy.
David is saying,
and Genesis is saying,
that the creation
of humanity,
male and female,
in God's image,
is even more
spectacular than this.
Than the stars
and the galaxies
and the sun
and the moon
and solar systems
and nebulae
and supernovas.
God's creation
of our physical bodies
is even more climactic,
more important,
higher,
than all of the solar systems
and outer space.
That's astounding.
I praise you
for I'm fearfully
and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works
out there
in those galaxies
but in here as well.
My soul knows it very well.
And of course,
the Bible says
that each one of us
is purposefully made.
Each one of us
is uniquely made.
God doesn't just simply
put 36 trillion cells
into a press,
hold down the handle
and out pops
another human being.
No, each one of us
is intricately made.
Now our bodies are broken
the result of sin
and the fall
and that none of us
have perfect bodies.
Only in heaven
will we get perfect bodies
so they're subject to decay
and disease
and problems
and pains and aches.
We'll talk about that
in two weeks time.
But yet,
each one of our bodies,
the DNA strands,
God has purposely
made them together.
It's not like
an Ikea table
or bookshelf
which we all have
in our houses, right?
Or an Ikea pan
that you have
the same one
as the other
7 million people
in Hong Kong.
No, no,
your body is unique.
It's intricate.
I remember a few years ago
our family went to
Chung Chao
for a weekend
and we stayed
at a guest house there
and on the bed
was a handwritten note
and it said this,
I've still got the card,
it says,
Dear Murphy family,
Happy Easter weekend.
We're so glad
that your family
will retreat here.
Please enjoy the gardens,
the food,
and rest well
and may God
meet your family
in a fresh way
this weekend.
You compare that
to when you go
to a hotel chain,
right?
And there's a card
on your bed
that says,
Welcome.
We're so glad
that you're spending
time with us.
If you need anything,
call us.
And you know,
you and the other
five million
have all got
that personalized card,
right?
You just took it
from the stock room,
put it on your bed,
nobody really cares
whether you're there
or not.
Versus
a handwritten note.
God says that
each one of our bodies
is hand formed
by the creator God.
He cares about us.
As Herman Barbing says,
Our bodies
is a marvelous piece of art
from the hand
of God Almighty.
Okay,
so that's what
we're going to look at today.
So,
how should we respond?
What does it look like
to live in light of this
this week?
Let me give us
three brief thoughts.
First one is this,
be surrendered.
Be surrendered.
We spoke about
Psalm 139
has four parts to it.
Part one says
God knows us.
Part two says
there is no place
in all creation
that we can flee
God's presence.
Part three says
that the reason
this is true
is because God
has made us
perfectly and intricately.
But part four
is a bit challenging
and interesting,
right?
I don't know if you
winced a bit
when Rachel read it to us.
In verse 19,
David says,
Oh,
that you would
slay the wicked,
O God.
Men of blood,
depart from me.
He says,
Do I not hate
those who hate you,
O Lord?
I loathe those
who rise up against you.
I hate them
with complete hatred.
I count them
my enemies.
Okay?
Not very nice.
But part of
Christian maturity
is growing
to love what God loves
and hate what God hates.
We typically think
as Christians
we shouldn't hate anything.
But actually,
growing in maturity
is thinking
God's thoughts
after him
and loving
what God loves
and despising
what God despises.
It's why it's right
to be angry
and to be hateful
towards wickedness
and injustice.
When someone's body
is violated
in something like rape,
it's right to be angry
and to hate that
because God hates it.
But then,
David says,
verse 23,
Search me,
O God.
Know my heart.
Try me
and know my thoughts.
If there is any
grievous way in me,
lead me, O Lord,
in the way of everlasting.
Friends,
the fact that
everything we have
and everything we are
belongs to God.
We belong to
body, soul,
mind, and strength
means that we should
bring all of our
totality before the Lord
and say,
Lord,
if there's anything
about me
that is grievous to you,
anything about
the way I'm living,
my mind,
what I think,
my soul,
what I love,
my heart,
what I do,
my body,
what I do with my body,
anything about me
that is contrary
to your ways,
O God,
lead me in your ways.
God,
have your way
in my life,
mind,
body,
and soul.
Jesus,
have your way.
Jesus,
you are my king.
I crown you
with many crowns.
You've died for me.
Jesus,
have your way
in my body.
Live surrendered.
Secondly,
be intentionally grateful.
As we said
at the beginning,
most of us
have an unhealthy
relationship
with our bodies.
We dislike
the way that we look.
We compare ourselves
to others.
We wish that we
looked different.
Many of us
struggle with pain
or sickness
or disease
and therefore,
sometimes we
don't see our bodies
as blessings
but as working
against our joy.
Scripture wants us
to see that our bodies
are an important part
of who we are.
It's a gift
that God has given us.
In two weeks' time,
we're going to consider
the fact that our bodies
are broken.
But for now,
to consider that
they are a gift from God.
They're not to be idolized
and worshipped
in front of the mirror
but they're also not
to be despised
or rejected,
abused
or hated.
Typically,
we don't think about
how amazing our bodies are
until they don't work so well
and age creeps up on us.
But next time you scoop
to pick up a child,
either your child
or a grandchild
or another child,
next time you go to the gym,
next time you carry
something heavy,
next time you strung a guitar,
strum a guitar,
next time you play the piano,
next time you are intimate
with your spouse,
think about the wonder
of the human body,
how amazing
and delightful it is,
the God who made you
fearfully and wonderfully.
Friends,
next time you feel pain
or you look in the mirror
and your hairline
is receding further,
you experience age
creeping up on you,
just consider how the fact
that for 99% of our lives,
we don't consider
how amazing our bodies are
and thank God,
rejoice and thank God
for the gift
of a body that works.
Here's the third thing
and finally,
be intentionally present.
One of my favorite movies
in the world
is a movie called
A Good Day in the Neighborhood
and it's about
Tom Hanks plays this actor,
this character called
Mr. Rogers
and in the movie,
Mr. Rogers is a TV personality
and there's this journalist
from some kind of
pretty small newspaper
that has assigned
the project of going
and interviewing Mr. Rogers
and the journalist
is a bit upset
because he thinks
this is a lame assignment.
I mean,
who wants to interview
poor old Mr. Rogers,
this doddery old man
on TV
and so he's not interested
but he has to do
this project
and so he gets hold
of Mr. Rogers
and he gets to have
a conversation with him
in between sets
while Mr. Rogers
is filming
these two shows.
So he's in between sets,
he's at the studio
and he has a conversation
with this journalist
and the journalist says,
listen,
you've got things to do,
I've got things to do,
I've just got to ask you
a few questions,
let's just get through
this quickly
and we can both get back
to what we really want to do
and Mr. Rogers stops him
and says,
hey,
just by the way,
son,
do you know
what is the most important
thing to me
in the whole world
right now?
And the journalist
rolls his eyes
and says,
what?
And he says,
this conversation
and I've always been
astounded by that.
When I'm talking
with people,
I must confess,
quite often
my mind is somewhere else.
Things I need to do,
emails I need to send,
that conversation.
I think it's one of the reasons
why we don't remember
people's names.
People introduce themselves,
hi,
I'm Kevin,
hi,
I'm Joe
and where's our mind?
It's somewhere else
and 30 seconds later
we can't even remember
who it is
that we're talking to.
What it would look like
to be intentionally present.
To be a human being
is not just to have
a heart and a soul,
not just to have a mind
on a stick.
It's to be present,
it's to be intentional,
it's to be an embodied
human being.
I must confess
that I thought about this
as the start of the service
walked in,
I was on my phone
because I was checking
something about the parking
and Joseph walked in
and as Joseph walked towards me,
rather than me looking him
in the eye and saying,
hey Joseph,
good to see you,
welcome,
I was on my phone
thinking about somebody else
that's not even in the building.
And so one of the problems
with our phones
is that we are
so susceptible
to being digital beings
in a digital world,
we're not even present
to our children,
our loved ones
or our family members.
And I'm the worst at this.
How often am I at home
and I'm sitting at home
in the lounge
and my children are around me
and I'm watching,
taking the sports score
and the tennis results
and then the football results
and then the Formula One results
and then the cricket results
and then the election results
and I'm not even present
with the most important people
in my life
because I'm in some other
digital world.
So what does it look like
to be intentionally present
in our lives?
So friends,
what do you think about your body?
Do you love your body?
Do you despise your body?
Do you hate your body?
Do you not care about your body?
Friends,
you may not love your body
but the sovereign God
who created a billion galaxies
and more,
who created the solar systems,
He made you.
He made you heart,
soul,
mind and body
and He loves all of you.
He loves your body.
And so this week
as you go into Hong Kong,
don't despise your body,
don't abuse your body,
take care of it
but more than anything,
thank God for it.
Be present
and worship God
with the body
that He's given you.
Let's do that now
as we come to Him
in prayer.
Let me pray for us.
Heavenly Father,
Scripture constantly amazes us.
It tells us things
that we wouldn't have thought
about ourselves
but God,
Your Word is often
what we need to hear
and we live in a world
that is so conflicted,
so confused
about what it means
to be a human being,
what it means
to have a body.
God,
we pray,
we want to think
Your thoughts after You.
We want to think like You.
We want to have
the mind of Christ.
And so God,
I pray help us.
Help us in this area
in particular.
Help us as we go
into Hong Kong this week.
Maybe as some of us
travel this week
and board an airplane
and fly somewhere else,
may we be amazed
at the intricacy
of the body
that You've given us.
God,
may we worship You
and thank You.
I pray God
when we wake up
tomorrow morning,
we will once again say,
praise be to God
for the body
that He's given me.
God,
for those of us
that struggle,
maybe we've had comments
our whole life,
maybe our parents
have said things to us,
friends,
colleagues,
for those of us
that struggle.
God,
I pray,
by Your Spirit
and in Your power,
God,
Lord,
I pray that
where words
that people have spoken
have been harsh
or hard
or derogatory,
I pray God
that those words
will lose their sting.
I pray God
that we won't
think of ourselves
according to what
people say about us
but what the sovereign,
glorious,
eternal,
uncreated God
says about us.
That You've made us
and You love us
and that we are
precious and fearfully
made and wonderful
in Your sight.
God,
I pray those of us
that struggle with our bodies,
God,
won't You set us free?
I pray we'll leave
this place today
convinced that we are
made by You
and loved by You
and precious in Your sight.
Help us,
I pray,
in Your great
and glorious name.
Amen.