Glorify God in Your Body
“God helps those who help themselves.” Sayings like these can be helpful but may be dangerous. They come as neat little packages that guide our convictions, attitudes, and actions in a whole host of ways, even when they’re not true, and even worse, when they’re almost true. God helps us because of who He is, not because of what we do, yet He calls us to be a people who obey Him which sometimes entails helping ourselves…when it serves His will. God’s people have always been good at coming up with sayings to guide our faith and practice that miss the mark of the truth. For example, in Matthew 5, Jesus dealt with 6 such sayings, beginning each time with the words “you have heard that it was said” or some variation like it, the last being “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” (Matthew 5:43). Makes sense and sounds about right but it isn’t, and so the Lord corrects the error, responding with “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). In our own time and culture, we might say something like “It’s my life and I’ll do what I want!” But I say to you, on the authority of God’s word, that “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1st Corinthians 6:19-20). We have our own misguided “isms” and so did the Corinthians: sayings which led them into great errors in the way they were living. Neatly packaged sayings that guided their Christian walk down bad paths. Paths like indulging in the services of prostitutes, and though this was clearly a significant sin problem in the church at Corinth, the bigger problem was the neat and tidy bad theology packaged into their sayings which led them to feel free to do what they were doing. What are you free to do in Christ, especially with your body? And is it even your body?
We invite you to come join us this Sunday morning for our in-person worship service at Leptondale Bible Church in Newburgh, starting at 10:55 AM. For those unable to attend, our service can be viewed live on the church’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/leptondalebiblechurch. This Sunday, we’ll continue a sermon series from 1st Corinthians titled “Written for Our Instruction” with a message from 1st Corinthians 6:12-20 titled “Glorify God in your body.”
God bless!
Pastor Mike