Week 1: Whose Body Is It?

Introduction

This morning we're starting a four-week series called All for His Glory. It comes from one verse, 1 Corinthians 10:31: "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

For the next few weeks we're going to talk about something churches almost never talk about: our bodies. What we eat, how we rest, whether we move. Some of you just got a little nervous. Let me say up front what this series is not. It is not a diet program. Nobody is going to get weighed. Nobody is going to be shamed. This is not about looking a certain way.

This series is about discipleship. It's about whether Jesus is Lord of all of us, including the parts that get hungry and tired and sore.

[Personal story: Share a moment when you realized you weren't caring for your own body well: a doctor's visit, exhaustion, a habit you couldn't shake. Keep it short and honest.]

So let's start with the most basic question. Whose body is it?

Read the text

Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 6, starting in verse 12.

[Read 1 Corinthians 6:12–20 aloud.]

Corinth was a wealthy port city with a reputation. The Christians there had picked up some slogans. You can hear them in verse 12 and 13: "All things are lawful for me." "Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food." In other words: it's just my body. What I do with it doesn't touch my soul.

Paul's main concern in this passage is sexual immorality, and we need to be honest about that. But the way he answers them, the principle he reaches for, applies to the whole body. He answers with three truths. Your body is God's, because God made it. Your body is God's, because Christ bought it. And your body is God's, because God will raise it.

1. God made it: your body is good

Paul says in verse 13, "The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." The Lord for the body. God is for your body.

That goes all the way back to the beginning. When God made the first man, Genesis says He "formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." Dust and breath. Body and soul. And when God looked at everything He had made, He said it was "very good."

David prays in Psalm 139, "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."

Some of us don't feel fearfully and wonderfully made. We look in the mirror and we feel disappointed, or ashamed, or just tired. Maybe you live with chronic pain or illness, and your body feels more like an enemy than a gift. Hear this: your body is not a mistake. Your body is not less valuable because it's sick or aging or bigger or smaller than you'd like. God made it, and God calls it good.

And that means the body matters. Christianity has never taught that the body is a cage for the soul. That idea came from Greek philosophy, and the Corinthians had soaked it up. Paul says no. The body is for the Lord.

2. Christ bought it: you are not your own

Now look at verses 19 and 20. "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."

Two images are packed in here. The first is a temple. For a Jewish reader, the temple was the place where God's presence lived. Paul says: if you belong to Jesus, the Holy Spirit lives in you. God's presence isn't in a building in Jerusalem anymore. It's in you.

The second image is a purchase. "You were bought with a price." In Corinth, slaves were bought and sold in the marketplace. Paul says you have been purchased, and the price was the blood of Jesus. You belong to someone else now.

That is the heart of this whole series. You are not an owner. You are a steward.

An owner can do whatever he wants. If I own a car, I can wash it every day, or I can run it into the ground. It's mine. But a steward is different. A steward manages something valuable on behalf of someone else. Jesus told parables about stewards. The master goes away, the servants manage his property, and when the master returns he asks, "What did you do with what I gave you?"

One day each of us will stand before the Lord. He isn't going to ask how much we weighed or how fast we ran a mile. But He may ask: "I gave you a body, and I lived in it by my Spirit. What did you do with it?"

[Illustration: Something you've been entrusted with that belongs to someone else: a borrowed truck, a friend's house while they were away, a grandparent's heirloom. How did you treat it differently because it wasn't yours?]

Being a steward cuts two ways. It rules out neglect. We don't get to say, "It's just my body, it doesn't matter," while we run ourselves into the ground with no sleep, constant stress and whatever food is fastest. But it also rules out obsession. A steward doesn't worship the property. Our culture spends billions of dollars worshiping the body, and Christians can fall into that too. Paul tells Timothy, "While bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way." The body is a gift to steward, not a god to serve.

3. God will raise it: your body has a future

Go back to verse 14. "And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power."

This is the part we forget. Christians don't just believe in souls going to heaven. We believe in the resurrection of the body. Later in this same letter, Paul writes, "What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable." Philippians says Jesus "will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body."

Think about what that means. God cares so much about your body that He plans to raise it from the dead and make it new. The body you have now is a seed of the body you'll have forever.

That gives us enormous hope, especially for those who are suffering. If your body is failing you right now, this isn't the end of the story. And it also gives us enormous motivation. If God is going to raise this body, then what I do with it now isn't meaningless.

So what do we do?

Paul ends with a command: "So glorify God in your body." Not "fix your body." Not "perfect your body." Glorify God in it.

Let me give you three simple ways to start this week.

1. Offer it. Romans 12:1 says, "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." This week, write a short prayer offering your body to God. Pray it every morning.
2. Thank God for it. Before every meal, stop and thank God for the food and for the body He gave you. Gratitude changes how we eat.
3. Take one small step. Not ten. One. A walk, an earlier bedtime, a glass of water instead of a soda. Tell someone what it is.

And if you're sitting there thinking, "I've tried all this before and failed," hear the good news. You are not your own. You were bought with a price. That means your worth was settled at the cross, not on the scale. Jesus didn't die for your body because it was in great shape. He died for you because He loves you. We don't take care of our bodies to earn God's love. We do it because we already have it.

Closing prayer

Father, thank You for making us, body and soul, and calling us good. Thank You, Jesus, for buying us with Your own blood. Holy Spirit, thank You for living in us. Forgive us for the ways we've neglected or idolized the bodies You gave us. Help us to be faithful stewards. Grow self-control in us, and give us joy in the small steps. Whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, may we do it all for Your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.