Embodied Persons/ January 14, 2024

Read Gen 1:26-28, 31; 2:7, 18-25

Our bodies are often in the background when we think about our spiritual lives, but contrary to how many think, the Bible puts our bodies in the foreground of our spirituality and humanity. The Bible is not alone, as many wrestle with serious questions about the importance of the body in our cultural climate. When we are tempted to be more “disembodied” than ever, we will turn our attention to the beautiful mystery that our God is embodied and created us to be embodied. 

1. Your Body is Wonderfully Made

Something so obvious that we often move past it quickly is that God created the human body. Genesis reveals that He is the master craftsman, designer, and artist. Every time God creates physical and material things, He calls them “good,” but after creating humanity, He surveys all of his creation and calls it “very good.” Another unique feature of humanity in the text is that the combination of body and soul is attributed to His “image.” As embodied persons made in the image of God, we are made to be a visible manifestation of God’s invisible glory, beauty, and goodness. 

The body is not incidental to who we are, as if it were some kind of shell for our soul. Genesis 2 zooms in to reveal that the body is formed first before the breath of life (soul or spirit) animates the body. So, who are you? You are an embodied person created in the image of God. You are an unrepeatable wonder, what Bavinck calls a “marvelous piece of art,” designed to reveal something special about God.

2. Your Body is Tragically Broken

If my body is wonderfully made, then why does it hurt? Why does my image often feel more like a burden than a gift? The Bible reminds us that we don’t only experience the curse of sin relationally or spiritually, but bodily. In the beginning, Adam and Eve were “naked and unashamed,” that is, they had complete acceptance of their bodies. After the Fall, we see that they hid in shame from God and themselves. They no longer felt they were wonderful, pleasing, and holy reflections of God. Our bodies also break down as we move toward death, and our work involves sweat and toil. 

We live with the tension in our bodies that we are wonderfully made but tragically broken. We could call this body incongruence. Instead of wholeness and unity between our body and soul, we feel at odds with ourselves. This explains why we often struggle with body image and produce all kinds of coverings to make ourselves more acceptable and pleasing to ourselves and others. We are looking for something (or someone) to affirm that we are acceptable, pleasing, or good.

3. Your Body Will Be Even More Wonderfully Remade

There is no way to redeem our bodies from their broken state in our own power. We must look to Jesus, who bears our brokenness and paves the way for bodily redemption. According to the Bible, Jesus had the most perfect body because He perfectly reflected the image of the Father in visible, physical form as a man. Though he perfectly reflected God on earth, Jesus’ body was tragically broken when he endured the Cross because of our sins. Yet, He rose from the dead in the same body that was broken, died, and scarred forever. Though we are not fully home in our bodies on earth, they will be made glorious like His body.

The good news about the body, according to the gospel, is that, by faith, your body is united to His, and you are wholly acceptable, pleasing, and holy by His merit. He offered his body for us so that we might die to trying to make it acceptable or pleasing on our own. In loving obedience, we might reflect him as his image: “Thank you, God. You have made me a wonder. I offer my body to you!” Indeed, we might still struggle to look at our own “selfies,”  but God sees a body made in His image, pleasing and acceptable to Him. He gave it to us and redeemed it from its brokenness through Christ. How could we not offer it back to Him?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What about the sermon most impacted you or left you with questions?

2. Do you see your embodied nature as a wonder? Does it resonate with you that God made your body “very good” and unrepeatable? How might this encourage you when you are wrestling with your image or comparing yourself with others?

3. What is something you notice about yourself when you take a selfie? Do you gravitate toward the “very good” or the “broken”? How does this relate to what you notice about others?

4. What are some typical ways that people hide or cover feelings of body incongruence: feeling at odds with yourself in your body? Are you tempted toward any of those yourself?

5. How is the tragically broken body of Jesus the answer to our tragically broken bodies? How do you need to receive his body “broken for you” today? (Look at Hebrews 10:5-25 for reference)

6. Read Philippians 3:20-21. How does this passage encourage you to look to Jesus and trust him for the transformation of your body into something wonderfully remade? How does this hope differ from what our culture tries to promise us apart from him?

7. Why does God want us to offer our bodies back to Him? How does sin tempt us to use our bodies for ourselves? What would it look like to offer your body to God, and how does this lead to a holistic and flourishing life in the body? 

Embodied God // January 7, 2024

Read Col 2:1-10

Our bodies are often in the background when we think about our spiritual lives, but contrary to how many think, the Bible puts our bodies in the foreground of our spirituality and humanity. The Bible is not alone, as many wrestle with serious questions about the importance of the body in our cultural climate. When we are tempted to be more “disembodied” than ever, we will turn our attention to the beautiful mystery that our God is embodied and created us to be embodied. 

1. God Fully Values Our Bodies

When Paul wrote Colossians, most philosophies and belief systems did not value the body. Many of these philosophies, some continuing to this day, portray salvation or enlightenment as a kind of escape from the body because the body is limited and weak, akin to a “prison” for our souls. Of all the world’s religions, belief systems, and worldviews, only the Bible provides a solid basis for believing in the value and worth of our bodies. Even secular materialism, which is popular today, can’t provide any basis for valuing the human collection of atoms from that of other animals or even inanimate objects.

The incarnation provides us with a basis for the value and worth of our bodies - “the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ” (Col 2:9). The present tense, “dwells,” connotes a permanent rather than temporary situation. God values our bodies so much that he chose to dwell in one forever. At this very moment, our God is embodied, just like us, which should impact how we value our bodies and the bodies of others.

2. God Fully Understands Our Bodies

We know that Jesus now dwells bodily in heaven, but how did he get there? The beauty of the incarnation reminds us that Jesus lived through all our bodily experiences from womb to tomb. God could have simply commanded us to understand Him and obey with our bodies.. After all, He is the Lord our God, who made us and deserves our full attention, devotion, and obedience. Instead, He took on a body and fully experienced physical pain, suffering, and trauma so that he could fully understand us and bring us back to Him. 

In his fully divine nature, Jesus knows everything. But here, we are taught that Jesus’ understanding of our bodies goes to an even deeper, more personal level. His understanding of the human body in a fallen world is not only truly divine from the outside, but truly human from the inside. He was like us “in every way” (Heb 2:17), yet without sin. Therefore, when we turn to Him in His Word, we approach not a distant deity but a God who understands us more than we understand ourselves.

3. God Is The Full Authority On Our Bodies

Living with a body in a broken, sinful world will come with challenges, temptations, and difficulties. We will all need to look to something to interpret all these things, make sense of them, and guide us. Will it be our feelings? Will it be the current cultural consensus? Will it be a reaction to the current cultural consensus? As our embodied God, Jesus is the expert and the authority on the human body. He is not only powerful but personal. Our authority on the body is not a “book” but a person who values and understands us. No one else fully knows what bodies are for, how they are to be used, healed, and made whole. This is foundational for appreciating the Bible’s specific teachings on the body. It can help us with practical issues concerning sexuality, gender, technology, health, and appearance.

4. God Is Fully Invested In The Total Redemption Of Our Bodies

What brings everything together in this text is that we are told  Jesus is fully invested in the redemption of all of us. His work won’t be done until we are made whole - body and soul. We all will have experiences with our bodies that remind us of their brokenness, frailty, and alienation from God. The Bible teaches us that the reason we often feel alienated from our bodies is because we are alienated from and hostile to God through sin (Col 1:21). The gospel tells us what God has done about this alienation. 

The beauty of the Gospel embedded in verse 10 is that there is nothing else we need to be “filled” (complete or whole) that is found apart from Him. The wholeness of Jesus as the God-man makes all the difference as his eternal embodiedness is our guarantee that we will become whole persons just like him. Jesus did not leave the glory of heaven, become fully embodied only to be alone forever in a glorified and whole human body! He came to where we are, to bring us where he now is. We will one day be as he is - whole - in both body and soul. 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What about the sermon most impacted you or left you with questions?

2. Why is it important we affirm that God fully values the body? How might this challenge some teaching that separates soul and body or gives higher value to spiritual (ie non material things) than physical, bodily things? 

3. What might it look like to value your own body as God does? What about the bodies of others (all types and kinds of bodies)? What are some things that keep us from valuing our body and others?

4. Where is it hardest to believe that God understands us (bodily) in “every way”? What difference would it make if we truly believed this for our bodily needs, temptations and struggles? 

5. How does God’s example to take up our human nature in order to understand us “from the inside” motivate us to do that for others? What might this like especially for those who have different kinds of bodily struggles, pains or needs?

6. What are some ways that we struggle with God’s full authority on our bodies, and which ones are prevalent in our culture? How can we trust that His authority is loving and good? 

7. Discuss how this gospel assures and promises us that God is fully invested (100%) in the full (100%) redemption of our bodies. How does knowing this help with the biggest issues we have with our bodies? (examples - our appearance, our aging, our bodily pain, our bodily illness, fear of death, sexuality, not feeling at home in our bodies)

BONUS REFLECTION

REFLECT: Colossians 1:15-22. Refer to this text for full description of how invested God is in the reconciling all things (physical, bodily).

REFLECT: Is there something about your experience in the body that you have not thought mattered to God or repressed out of fear that God or others wouldn’t understand? Whether or not you share this aloud, take time to pray about this, confess your need for help, and receive God’s love toward you in Christ.

Faith and The Ultimate Test // November 19, 2023

READ Gen 22:1-19

In our series, we have learned how Abraham became the father of all who have faith, an example referenced in all of Scripture. The answer is through many tests, but what we have in this passage is not just any test but his final, cumulative exam. As one scholar noted, “No other story in the Bible can match such haunting beauty and theological depth.” God wants us to be shocked by this story to better understand that true and living faith has less to do with us and more with Him. 

1. The Shocking Test

Abraham has been through a lot, and “after all these things” (v1), he finally received all that he had hoped for, an heir in his son Isaac. In Isaac are Abraham’s life, meaning, and hope for the future of the promise. Then God tests him in an almost incomprehensible way: to offer up Isaac as a burnt offering (v2). Why? How? As difficult as this is to grasp, we must first step back to why God tests. Just as an academic test reveals what is true in our minds, a spiritual test reveals what is true in our souls. A test is meant to reveal and refine our faith so that we might become more mature. 

It seems cruel, barbaric, and even terrible of God to put Abraham through a test like this. Yet, the shocking reality is that if the object of our faith really does matter and everything else will one day be taken from us, then there is nothing more loving and good for God to do than to ensure our faith is in Him. God will not allow his gifts to become our gods. No matter how shocking it is, God asks us to offer up and let go of those things we cling to so much and trust in to give us the future we want. 

2. The Shocking Response

We don’t know what Abraham was thinking right away because he woke up early without delay in setting out to obey God (v.3). The following verses move much slower as they capture his journey with Isaac, moment by moment, up until he is right about to slaughter his son. Abraham trusted God and obeyed, but it was not blind faith, grit, or duty as if “God says it, and that settles it!” 

What was in Abraham’s heart? How did he do it? During the journey, Abraham tells others that “we’ll” come back, referring to Isaac (v. 5). Hebrews 12:19 also reveals that he “considered God to be able even to raise someone from the dead.” Abraham “considered” that the promise of God would not contradict the command of God, even if that meant raising the dead. He had genuine faith that God would provide, no matter what (v.8). This is the difference between dead and living faith. Empty faith says, “I believe,” but never offers anything up. Living faith says, “If it dies, God will raise up something better.

3. The Shocking Result

The shocking result is that God never wanted Isaac to be offered up. He wanted to show Abraham Isaac that he would provide the offering. The main point of this passage is not about what “Isaac” you need to give up; it is about God becoming for us “the Lord will provide.” This promise should dwell in the deepest part of our soul, as it surely did for Abraham, who displayed genuine faith in a trial. No matter how shocking the situation, God will see that his promise is fulfilled to those who place their faith in Him.

For the blessing to be received and come to all the nations, there had to be an offering to cover sin and unbelief that stood in the way. The Gospel is founded upon the God who promises: “I will provide.” God gave up his beloved Son, who was offered up in our place. He was called the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. He carried the wood of his own suffering up the mountain and silently obeyed his father. If God has done this, do we have any reason not to trust him? Romans 8:32 reminds us of a beautiful promise: “He who did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all,  How will he not also with him grant us everything?”

QUESTIONS

1. What about the sermon most impacted you or left you with questions?

2. Why does God test us? Have you wrestled with this in your life? How does testing our faith bring maturity? What do tests reveal about us? about God?

3. What are some examples of things people place their trust in and won’t let go of? Is there something in your life of which you say to God - “no not that, I can’t give that up!”

4. Have you experienced the tension between God’s promise (of life, grace, strength, abundance” and God’s command (that seems to lead to death, emptiness, weakness and suffering)? How does Hebrews 11:19 help us see how Abraham trusted God in this situation? 

5. What have you given up and allowed to die as a result of your trust in Jesus? If it’s hard to think of something - what do you think God is calling you now to give up and allow to die as result of trusting obedience to Jesus? 

6. Why is it so difficult to believe that God will provide? How does the gospel assure us - even against all odds - he will?

Meditate on Romans 8:32 and pray together about what areas in your life you may still resist to believe the promise in this verse. What is holding you back from trusting that “God will provide?” Why?

Judgment and Faith // November 12, 2023

READ Genesis 18:16-33

One overarching lesson from this series has been that living by faith was not easy for Abraham. He often struggled, doubted, and wrestled with trusting God, yet through all this, God worked to build in him a refined, tested faith. In this passage, Abraham struggles with how to reconcile his faith in God with God’s impending judgment of two cities. He is not alone, as many of us today also struggle to understand God’s judgment in the context of His character, our world, and our future.  

1. Understanding God’s Judgment

We have to be honest and admit it – we all believe judgment is necessary. We may hide from this truth in places of peace or comfort, but it is nearly impossible when we open our eyes to the amount of violence, oppression, and injustice in the world. The real issue is that we disagree on who is qualified to judge and for what acts judgment is called for. God’s judgment is based on a complete and accurate perspective of the situation, something humans could never achieve. He reveals to Abraham that he not only hears injustice as an “outcry” but that he goes “down to see” it (v. 20-21). God is concerned about setting things right, as the Hebrew term for judgment (misphat) means in this passage. Even if it is hard to receive, would we not prefer a Judge who was perfectly just, exhaustive in knowledge, indiscriminately attentive? Our God is also patient in executing judgment, even amid the outcry of evil in our world.

2. Responding to God’s Judgment

God does not only want Abraham to understand judgment, but he also invites a response. We read in v. 25 that he “stepped forward” to make a case before God. Instead of rejecting him, God graciously invites Abraham’s response as an expression of genuine faith:

• Interrogate (v. 25) - Abraham voices his struggle and even questions God’s character. What does God say? “You’re right.” “You’re right to care about justice!” We should never be afraid to express our honest struggles to God.

• Intercede (v. 26-32) - Abraham intercedes not only for his nephew Lot and his family but for the entire city to be spared. He does so with great humility and reverence. God wants his people to intercede. His job is to judge; our job is to intercede.

• Entrust (v. 32) - At the end of our pleading, we must entrust ourselves to God. Abraham’s inquiry ends at a certain point, likely because he’s heard all he needs to validate his trust in God.

3. Escaping God’s Judgment

Abraham learned something important in his interaction with God that enabled him to trust God’s role as judge and His righteous judgment. God explains how his judgment will work. Not only would the righteous not be swept away with the wicked, but He would “spare” the whole place, everyone “for their sake” (v. 26). The translation “spare” is not strong enough and could accurately be translated as “forgive.” The God of righteousness, who has every reason to carry out firm judgment upon sinners, makes a way of forgiveness for all. The righteousness of the few is imputed or covers the wickedness of the many. 

The tension is at the heart of the whole Bible. As the grand story of the Bible moves forward, this interaction will reframe the story: Will there be a righteous remnant to spare the wicked, provide an escape from God’s judgment, or intercede for them? This tension, “imbalance” in God’s judgment, is only resolved in Jesus Christ. The Gospel confirms that we are forgiven and spared from judgment on account of the vicarious substitution of Christ. He bore the full judgment of God in our place. We find escape from the judgment of God, not by our righteousness but by faith in the righteousness of another, Jesus Christ our Lord.

QUESTIONS

1. What about the sermon most impacted you or left you with questions?

2. Do you struggle with the idea of a God of judgment? Explain in your own words why - even if we struggle with it - that a God of perfect judgment is far better than the alternatives.

3. How can living in a place of peace or comfort shield us from the necessity of judgment? 

4. What does Abraham’s interaction teach us about what kind of prayer life we should have? Which part (interrogate, intercede, or entrust) do you find most naturally in your prayer life? Which one do you struggle with?

5. How do you tend to play the judge over others? What does this reveal about your own heart? 

6. How does the reality that you escaped judgment because of Jesus’ righteousness impact how you should judge others? What should compassionate judgment look like for fallible people like us?

Faith and Laughter // November 5, 2023

READ Gen 17:15-19; 18:1-15; 21:1-7

Martin Luther once said, “You have as much laughter as you have faith.” He’s saying  laughter is a sign of faith, but how can that be? Abraham’s story shows us that laughter is not only an important theme in his story but in its relationship to faith in God. Each passage considers a different kind of laughter that arrives at the laughter of faith. Remember that the name Isaac also means “he laughs.” For us to reach the laughter of faith we often must first pass through the others as Abraham and Sarah did.

1. The Laughter of Disbelief

When the Lord tells Abraham that his wife will bear a son in her old age, he falls facedown and laughs (17:17). How could a couple in their 90s possibly bear a child? His laughter is a kind of disbelief but not necessarily a mark of irreverence or hard-hearted doubt. Why? Abraham’s laugh is not a sign he doesn’t get the promise, the word of God; it’s a sign he does get it. That is why God was gentle with his disbelief. Consider how shocking it is that God chooses impossible situations to display his glory. If you haven’t laughed at the promise of God, then have you ever really heard it? If we haven’t laughed at the gospel and all it promises, we likely haven’t truly understood it! 

2. The Laughter of Disappointment

Sarah’s laugh is different than Abraham’s because she puts up more of a wall between herself and God. For many years, the deepest longing of her heart was to have a child. Perhaps that was now just a faint hope from the past? If Abraham had diminished hope in this possibility, she had undoubtedly lost hope. God questions Sarah’s laugh (18:13) because he notices something cynical underneath. God questions us because he wants us to express ourselves honestly in our disappointment and remember that nothing is impossible for Him! Though Sarah denied it, the Lord called her out. Though our disappointments can put up a wall over time between us and hope, God answers our laughter of disappointment by reminding us - “Is anything impossible for Him”? Even if we put up a wall, he is still there behind it. 

3. The Laughter of Faith

The Lord came to Sarah just as He had promised and kept his word to her and Abraham. Lest they should ever forget their laughter, He told them to name their son Isaac, which means “he laughs.” Sarah even proclaims her laughter and the fact that others will laugh with her (21:6). She knows that no one could ever look at their story without laughing about the Lord’s impossible, wonderful, and marvelous grace! She realized she and Abraham (and all who hear their story) will never be able to look at Isaac and say, “Look what we did. We did it. Our story is a story about our obedience, ability, and resources.” No! It’s a story where they only brought their helplessness, barrenness, and deadness, and God, in his grace, brought birth to the barren, power to the weak, and life from the dead. They would laugh every time they said his name and say, “Look only God could do that! Can you believe it?” 

Here is the lesson about faith - Faith, saving and sanctifying faith, is trust in God to do the impossible. To remove every ounce of trust that we can earn, win, or achieve the blessing of his favor, his forgiveness, and his Fatherly love and accept it all as a gift we don’t deserve. 

Once we see the depth of our need, our sin - we laugh at any notion that we can earn God’s approval! Once we see the depth of his grace in Jesus Christ - we laugh in wonder that what is too good to be true is, in fact, true! To receive all the promises of God, we simply trust. This is why the apostle Paul tells us (Rom.4:11ff; Galatians 3:7, 29), to become a Christian is to become a child/heir of Abraham, ie an Isaac - a he/she laughs. 

QUESTIONS

1. What about the sermon most impacted you or left you with questions?

2. What does it mean to laugh in disbelief at something? (ie as in “They stared at the Taj Mahal in disbelief”). How is Abraham’s laugh a laugh of disbelief? 

3. It was said in the sermon, “If you haven’t laughed in disbelief at the gospel (that it’s too good to be true), you probably don’t get it”. Discuss whether you agree with this and whether you have ever responded to God’s promise by saying inside: “Haha! Yeah right…  it’s just too good to be true!”.

   Hint: Why doesn’t anyone laugh in disbelief at a religion that says, “Be good and you’ll get the eternal reward”, “Obey and God will bless you”, “Be devoted and God will be devoted to you”.

4. How can our laughter be a sign of a wall of doubt or cynicism between a person and God like Sarah’s? Have you experienced this? What does God’s interaction with Sarah tell us about how God reacts to laughter of disappointment?  

5. How does Isaac’s name (“he laughs”) reinforce the message of the gospel that the promise is not earned but received by faith? How might it be healthy for us to laugh at our attempts to earn God’s blessing, love and approval? How might it be healthy for us to laugh at God’s ridiculous and unrelenting grace given to us in Jesus? (this is the “it’s too good to be true but it’s true kind of laugh)

6. Which of these applications is most important to you right now:

• The more we grow as Christians, the more we laugh.

• We don’t need to take ourselves too seriously.

• When our laughter wanes, it’s usually a sign that we are living like “it’s up to us”. 

  Spend time sharing and praying the truth of the gospel into areas of disbelief and disappointment.