Hi! Welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, your host for the Daily Challenge. Today’s Tuesday; it’s the day we explore in the Bible the topic that we introduced yesterday. We’re in a series called, “Reset” right now, looking at how deciding to follow Jesus resets some really important areas of our lives. We’ve looked at several and this week we’re looking at how it resets our view of food and our body.
We’re going to try to understand it using some of the words that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth. The letter is called 1 Corinthians. He wrote the following when trying to relate how we view our bodies in respect to food and how we view our bodies with respect to sexuality. Here it goes, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything. Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
The very beginning of what Paul had to say there was actually a quotation, it’s kind of hard to tell when I’m just reading it out loud, but if you’d seen it in print you’d see that, at least our modern translations of the Bible mark that out as a quotation. Paul was quoting a very common saying in his culture, “All things are lawful for me.” You can imagine how that was used. People had very similar attitudes to people today, “You know what, anything goes.” “Do what feels right.”
Paul was using food as an example in this passage of how we view our bodies. Then, he applied it later on to sexuality. We’re going to look at that next week. It’s a little easier to talk about food and our bodies. It’s a little less emotionally charged. We can see some of the same principles at work.
Ever since the 60s in particular, western culture has been very permissive. Simply said, “You can do pretty much anything that feels good to you.” It’s almost unlimited, but most of us, if we really think about it, do want to see some limits. We’ll say, “You know what, do what feels good, do what you think is right as long as you don’t hurt someone else.” Or, “As long as you’re not an elected official.” Or, “As long as it doesn’t involve children.” You can go on. We want things to be as unlimited as possible in our culture, but generally, we recognize that it can’t be completely unlimited. There’s got to be some limit that, even if something feels good, we need to stop.
The reason that Paul talks about this is it seems that the Christians in the city of Corinth were very much adopting the same, “All things are lawful for me” as their own. As Christians they knew that they had been saved by grace alone, not through anything they’d done or not done, but simply because God loved them and wanted a relationship with them. They understood the concept of grace, but then it seems they were running too far with it, saying, “Okay, since we are saved by grace, it doesn’t matter what we do.” “Since we don’t have to earn God’s love by following his law, we don’t have to follow his law at all. All things are lawful for us.”
They were kind of taking God’s amazing gift of grace and abusing it, taking it places it was never meant to go. They were using it as a license for all kinds of things and Paul uses the example of how they were just being gluttons to illustrate how they were using and abusing their bodies in other ways. We’ll talk about that next week, but for now let’s just think about the gluttony aspect of it. It’s clear that they were abusing themselves. They were taking the bodies God had given them and using them in ways that God had never intended. They were trying to use God’s gift of grace as justification for that.
Paul was willing to agree to a point and say, “Yes, all things are lawful for us.” “We don’t need to be saved by following God’s law anymore, but that doesn’t mean there are no limits.” What happens is, if we try to consider something completely unlimited in our eyes, “We can eat as much as we want.” “We can do as much sexually as we want.” All these kinds of things like that. When we take license with no limits, we very quickly become dominated by what it is we think we’re there to enjoy. That’s why Paul used that language. “Yeah, okay, all things are lawful, but I will not be dominated by anything.”
When we leave the domination of the law for grace, we have make sure we continue living under grace and we don’t become bound by some other system of laws, or by something else. For example, I know a friend who found himself, at one point, in his lowest point in life, homeless and on the streets with a drug problem. He eventually found his way out of that life, but it was amazing to see what a shop-aholic he became. He left addiction to drugs for addiction to shopping and spending. It could be equally damaging in his life if he continues to spend like that in ways he can’t afford. It can still ruin his relationship. It can still ruin his relationship with God. It can still ruin his life. He’s just traded one domination for another.
The question is, if we have to be dominated or owned by something, what’s it going to be? What’s the best thing to devote our lives to? What’s the best thing to pursue above anything else? If it’s not going to be food, if it’s not going to be sexuality or drugs, what will it be, since it has to be something? We will always trade one thing for another. We can’t be completely free to enjoy unlimited things in life. That’s not what they were designed for. So, what will it be?
Paul is suggesting that for the Christians in Corinth, it’s meant to be their devotion to Jesus Christ. That’s meant to be the number one thing in their life. What that leads to is the resurrection of the body. It’s a term that Christians have long used to describe that what we’ll pursue in this life, what we’ll have in the next. If we pursue a relationship with God, we’ll have a relationship with God after death as well. If we’ve avoided, then we won’t have it. But we want it, right? In the same way what we do with our physical bodies matters now.
If we see them as God’s, something to be treated as if they belong to God and used for God, then after death, we can expect our bodies to be raised. It’s clearly something we’ve been pursuing in this life, something that will belong in the next, kind of why Paul says something about stomachs, he says, to elaborate on the saying tha t all things are lawful, he says, “The stomach was made for food and food for the stomach, but God will destroy both.” What he’s saying is that there are some more important things than just filling our stomachs today. We want to treat our bodies as if they belong to God today. We want to treat our bodies as if they matter. We want to treat our bodies as if they matter forever and they will be with us forever, that this isn’t just about feeling good for the moment.
That’s something I want you to consider as you discuss with some friends what you’ve learned today.
Question: “How does what we eat and do with our bodies impact our resurrection bodies?” “What does it tell God about our interest in heavenly bodies when we abuse our physical bodies now?”
Well, have a great discussion. I’ll see you tomorrow.
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Hi, welcome to Redeem the Commute. I'm Ryan, your host of the Daily Challenges. Normally, we follow a weekly rhythm that helps us explore different topic and how following Jesus impacts to that topic. This week is going to be a little different. We're going to be taking an opportunity to just kind of see where we're as a community. Now, you probably know this is a mobile app and website for busy commuters. We're also trying to become a Church community. As we explore what it means to follow Jesus as individual people engaged and in a busy lifestyle. I want to make sure that we're completely disconnected from one another. Even though we're usually quite scattered as a community, we want to take time to gather as well.
As a gathered community, we want to make sure that we're committed to some of the same things in common. That's why through this week, this week alone it's going to be kind of a special week. We're going to be looking at each of the things our community is committed to, one-by-one and seeing how we're doing as a community, by hearing the stories of individuals, who are part of our growing online community or in-person courses, who are seeing their lives changed. We hope they'll inspire you to see some transformation on your own life as well.
Five things that we're committed to as a community; I'll start with being committed to growth in discipleship. We have some common content to learn together. We also want to be committed to God in worship, committed to generosity in our resources, committed to grace in our lifestyles and witness, and finally, committed to groups in community. Well, today is Wednesday. As part of our commitment this week to looking at the five things that the Redeem the Commute community is meant to be committed to as it becomes Redeemer Church, today we're looking at how we want to be committed to God in worship.
When we had a baptism service, about a month ago, we had a number of people come out and experienced the Redeem the Commute community for the first time in-person. One of those people came to the service, heard some inspiring music, heard me speaking on grace and baptism, and afterwards, came right up to me and said, "Wow, why don't we do this all the time?" That was really encouraging to hear. I'm quite ready for it, but the fact that somebody wants that is a really good sign that we're on the right track as a community.
We're learning what it means to follow Jesus, those who are ready to actually worship Him as Lord and Savior. That's really where we've headed as a community. It's the fullness of Church. Church includes the opportunity to meet regularly to worship God, sing songs, pray together and learn together as one large group community, not just small groups.
When you hear the word "Church," what do you think about it? You probably think of a building, right? Or maybe an institution or denomination or weekly event that people go to. I can't really blame you. That's one way the word can be interpreted in the English language. There is much more to the word "Church" than that. Church community is actually a word from … The word "Church" actually comes from the Greek, "Ekklesia," which means gathering of people called out for a specific purpose.
See, there is a gathered mode. They're gathered community of people. They're also called out for a purpose. They have a job to do out in the world. I think this describes a community of people who are gathered, so they can be scattered. Both modes are important for the Church. I know our mind usually goes to the gathered mode first, but we need to make sure Church communities are effective in the scattered mode as well. That's what we're going to try to be as a Church community. As Redeem the Commute becomes Redeemer Church, we want to make sure that we're effective in scattered mode first, that we're learning to follow Jesus on our own through our website and mobile app that we're praying, that we're gathering together in small group communities.
Then, we're going to start gather together for large public worship occasions, starting this fall. At least every month, we're going to start meeting regularly, just to worship God, learn together, pray together, sing songs together. That's going to be the gathered mode of worship for us as a community. We can be effective both in gathered and scattered mode.
Now, to be ready for that kind of ambitious goal of meeting regularly for worship starting this fall, it's going to take an army of volunteers and people who are gifted in various things like music, children's ministry, who are good welcomers, who are good in technology, things like that. It's going to take a number of volunteers. To be honest, we haven't met enough yet. If you're one of those quiet people watching Redeem the Commute's content, you haven't reached out yet to let me know that you're part of our community that you'd want to come in-person to worship with us, and you have those kinds of gifts that I'd love to hear from you.
Like I said, we need those who are gifted in music, those who are gifted with technology, those who are gifted in welcoming and serving others, making a good cup of coffee, maybe, and those who can simply let us know they're going to be part of this community as it starts to meet together regularly for worship. We need to know that you're committed to being a part of this before we take the huge risk of actually going ahead and launching a regular worship services.
This is a very strange way to start a Church. Normally Churches start gathered, start just having services and then eventually you try to get people to be followers of Jesus for the rest of the week. We've gone about the opposite way. We started by paying attention to Monday to Friday and Saturday, and now, we're going to add Sunday to our routine. We need your help to do that. I'd love to hear from you. That's why your challenge today is to fill in our worship survey. You'll find a link to it right at the bottom of today's content. Let us know. Leave your email address, please, so we can get in touch if you'd like to be involved, or just let us know what kind of worship experience is going to best help you worship God as part of this community.
That's your challenge for today to complete that survey, maybe talk with your group first if you're meeting regularly with a group, talk over what kind of worship experience would be best for you. It makes sense for you to how children in worship with adults or to have children's ministry as a separate occasion from adult worship. How long would the speaking be? Where it would be held, in a Church building with a steeple or in public space? Those are the kinds of questions we have on our worship survey.
