Scripture Romans 12:1
Therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, this is your spiritual act of worship.
Therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, this is your spiritual act of worship.
Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.
Offering vs Sacrifice
the word "offering" include both grain and animal offerings.
"Sacrifice" only refers to animal offerings.
The sacrifice meant the animal of the sacrifice (who had no choice in the matter) was giving its life - blood shed, death, parts eaten.
What is your body image? What is the image that comes to mind if your body were in the best shape possible - realistic but unlikely you will get there? What are the barriers to having your body look like that image? What would you have to stop doing AND what would you have to start doing to have that body you imagine is possible though difficult to achieve?
The question for each of us is - why don’t we have the body we imagine is possible? The answer is simple - ice cream is way better than sliced cucumbers; sitting is far better than walking; lazy is so much better than exerting energy. Think about this: We went from playing outside running around to sitting in front of a tv but at least having to get up to adjust the channel or volume or rabbit ears to using a push button remote control and now we don’t even don’t even have to exercise our fingers and just say alexis watch my favorite tv show and the tv goes to that show. Soon it will be even more like the Jetsons, Alexis bring me my lunch, Alexis go to work for me, Alexis, kiss my wife good night without ever leaving the…it is called this for a reason…lazyboy recliner!
You have two body images - how your body is now (that image may or may not be correct) and you an image of what your body could become if you did what you should do. Let me add a 3rd body image to your mental file. What will your body look like 5 years from now if you keep living like you are today? Oh my, that image probably got a little worse than the first.
Let’s apply all this to the church. What is your image of the Ashland church body today (your image may or may not be correct) What is the image that comes to mind if our church body were in the best shape possible - realistic but unlikely we will get there?
What are the barriers to having our church body look like that image? What would we have to stop doing AND what would we have to start doing to have that church body you imagine is possible, though difficult to achieve?
SING “If we are the body?”
What is your body image of the biblical Jesus who walked the earth 2000+ years ago? Your image is certainly not correct because no one knows what he looked like. He took no selfies, there was no portrait done. Stop and think about that for a moment. Consider how many people have gone through this world and there is no image of them to be found anywhere. There are very few pictures of me as a child - in part because I was the third child of a woman who became a single mother but also because polaroid’s or shoot and develop picture were expensive. Compare that to my grandchildren who we have had 1000’s if not 10,000s pictures taken of them already.
Jesus was not blond hair and blue eyes, he was middle eastern and a Jew. But that is not enough of a description.
Isa 53:1-6 The MSG
Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought God 's saving power would look like this? The servant grew up before God — a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried — our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him — our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost. We've all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong, on him, on him.
Communion with Remembrance Communion song
A NEW BODY IMAGE FOR JESUS
Eph 1:18-23
I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
SONG: Revelation Song: Worthy is the lamb that was slain - holy, holy is He!
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