YOUR MOVE
CONNECT WITH OTHERS
DR. JIM DIXON
1 CORINTHIANS 3:16-17, 1 CORINTHIANS 6:19-20
SEPTEMBER 9, 2012
When I was young my dad, my brothers, and I would sometimes play the game of chess, particularly on kind of cold, bad weather days. We were amateurs, but we had a lot of fun. We live in a world where some people take the game of chess very seriously. There are chess masters and over 1,000 registered grand masters around the world. Most chess historians believe that the greatest American chess player was Bobby Fisher. Bobby Fisher won the United States chess championships eight different times, the first time when he was 14 years old. He went on to become a grand master and world champion for multiple years. Bobby Fisher was a brilliant, brilliant man. I am sure many times he said to his opponent, “Your move.” Whenever it was Bobby Fisher’s move, he always seemed to make the right move, always the right choice.
That was true in the board game of chess, but it was not true in his life, off the board, in the real world. Out in life his choices weren’t so good. Bobby Fisher, as the years went by, became anti-American and antisemitic. Bobby Fisher became more and more isolationist. Tragically he lived the last three years of his life in isolation in Iceland.
There are many authorities on the subject of chess who believe that the greatest chess player in world history was Gary Kasparov. Gary Kasparov still lives in Russia and has entered the world of politics. He is the political opponent of Vladimir Putin. Gary Kasparov was ranked the number one chess player in the world for 20 years in a row, from 1985 to 2005. Now, as I said, he has entered the world of politics. He has just written a book. The book is called Why Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Move from the Board to the Boardroom.
It is true, isn’t it; it is true in life that we need to make the right move. We need to make the right choices. Everyday there are choices to make—choices that relate to your body and its health, choices that relate to your soul and its health. Every single day we need to make choices. In Joshua 24 God spoke to Israel through Joshua, “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.” You have to choose everyday whom you are going to serve. You have to choose many things each and every day. That is why we have this subject, your move.
First, we will look at our body and soul in the context of relationship. Our first teaching is: It is your move—connect with other people for the sake of your soul. Connect with others for your soul’s sake and for the sake of their souls, connect with other people. It is your choice. It is your move. We want to begin by taking a look Biblically at the soul.
What is the soul? The Bible says that we are, as human beings, complex. We are physical and we are spiritual. We have a body and we have a soul. The New Testament, the Greek words are “soma” for body and “psyche,” or “pneuma,” for soul or spirit. In the Old Testament, the word for soul or spirit is “ruah” or “nephesh.” This Biblical teaching is consistent and clear. We have a physical, biological side, but we also have a spiritual side. Our spiritual side is immaterial. Our spiritual side, our soul, is where our will resides, where we have culpability for the choices we make for the use of our own volition. Our soul is the seat of the personality, where the essence of who we are resides. When we die, our body goes to dust, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, but our soul continues. Our soul survives. We want to take a look at what it means to care for the soul and what it means to care for the body.
We begin with looking at the soul. The Bible tells us that our communion with God occurs at the level of the soul. God rarely appears and talks to us physically. Occasionally the Bible records and history records angelic intervention. Occasionally the Bible records and history records theophanies. Normally, God communicates with us spiritually, inwardly at the level of the soul. It says in Romans 8 that the spirit of God communes with our spirit. When we look at the soul, we are looking at the spiritual side of man.
The Bible tells us a few things about the soul. First of all, the Bible tells us that all human souls are lost, the world over. Every soul is lost. This is offensive to the world. It is not politically correct. People will say, “What do you mean my soul is lost?” The Bible consistently tells us this. We are all lost apart from Christ. That is why Christ came into the world. That is why God sent his son. That is why Jesus has given his people the Great Commission that we might take the gospel to the nations because souls are lost. Jesus told us that he came into the world to seek and to save the lost.
Jesus focused on the lost in his parables. In Matthew chapter 18, or Luke chapter 15, you see parables that center on the lost. You see the Parable of the Lost Sheep, the Parable of the Lost Coin, and Parable of the Lost Son, sometimes called the Prodigal Son. When you look at that parable contextually, it is combined with the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son. It is all about lost. Lost. Lost. Lost. This is the message of Jesus that there is more joy in heaven when one who is lost is found than any other time. Heaven rejoices when the lost are found.
I think in this world most people kind of suspect that they are lost souls. Have you ever wondered why the hymn “Amazing Grace” is so popular? It seems like everyone loves it. Non-Christians love it. It is a Christian hymn but everyone seems to know the words; everyone seems to sing the song. You could start singing it in any crowd and it seems like almost anywhere in the world and everyone will join in. You see bagpipers playing it. It is in every nation. “Amazing Grace.” I think there is something that rings true for most people. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” I think people suspect deep within themselves that they are indeed lost and in need of a Savior. We have the Bible message that souls are lost and also the Bible message that souls must be found. This is our heartbeat here at Cherry Hills Community Church. This is at the center of the teaching of scripture. Souls must be found, must be saved.
There is a story that I have told some of you. It is really one of my favorite stories. It is about a man named Robert Blakely. Robert Blakely was a senior at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1895. Obviously, Butler University is still there in Indianapolis, Indiana. He had a bad year. His father had died earlier in the year. That just shook Robert Blakely’s world. His dad had died, and it felt like a huge, huge loss and his girlfriend had left him that year. He felt rejection and low self-esteem. He was struggling with his life’s direction and his life’s purpose. He had never been a religious man. He never went to church. But he began to wonder, “Maybe I am missing out on something. Maybe there is a God. Maybe he has some kind of a plan for me. Maybe I am missing out on something. Maybe there is something to the spiritual.”
He decided to make a phone call. He thought, “I will just call a church here in Indianapolis.” He picked a church at random. It happened to be the First Presbyterian Church, which is still there in the city of Indianapolis today. Robert called the church and said, “I am kind of depressed. I am a senior student here at Butler University and I would like to talk to somebody.” There were no pastors on call, but there was an Elder at the church who was on call that day. The Elder said, “Let me come over. I would love to talk to you.”
So, the Elder went over to Robert Blakely’s dorm at Butler University. They sat down and began to talk around 7 PM that night. They talked until 1 AM. For six hours they talked about God, they talked about life, they talked about Robert’s life, and they talked about Jesus. The Elder took Robert through the gospels and talked to him about the cross and how Jesus died for the sin of the world, and how Jesus died for each of us. He talked about the empty tomb and the resurrection and how Christ has risen and he is Lord. He is calling people to himself, he is building his church, and how he will come again, and how he will receive his people and he will judge the nations.
As they talked, it was like the Holy Spirit just descended like a dove into the room. They both could feel the presence of God. This Elder knew that God had shown up and he could feel God’s presence. Robert Blakely, who wasn’t even sure if he believed in God’s existence, could sense and feel the presence of God. At 1 AM, Robert Blakely gave his heart to Jesus and accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and as his Savior. As a soul that was lost, he was now found.
The Elder was so happy. He said it was the most joyful moment in his life. You think about the words in the parables of Jesus about the joy in heaven when one soul is saved. That is the joy, the heavenly joy that the Elder experienced. The amazing thing is who that elder at First Presbyterian Indianapolis was, because he was Benjamin Harrison, the 26th President of the United States. He had only been out of the White House for a couple of years when he left the Presidency and he left Washington DC, and he returned to his home city in Indianapolis to his home church at First Presbyterian Indianapolis. He was made an Elder, and he was the one on call that day in 1895 that led Robert Blakely to Christ.
Benjamin Harrison was the first grandson of a President to become, himself, a President. His grandfather was William Harrison, who was the 9th President of the United States and the hero of Tippecanoe. Some of you know some of your history that way. What an amazing story. I think it reflects who we are.
In our offices, and on our staff, whether you are talking Sunday school staff, counseling staff, teaching staff, pastoral care, whomever you talk to, our greatest joy is seeing the lost found, seeing the lost saved. This is our heartbeat. It is what we are about. It is even what our community groups in the church are about, seeing the lost found. You heard in the video the testimony of one woman that her husband had accepted Christ when he had cancer in that community group here at Cherry Hills Community Church. This is our great joy.
The Bible says that not only are souls lost and souls must be found, but the Bible says souls are sick. That is what the Bible says about our souls that they are sick. It is true of all of us. We are all soul sick, even if we have been found, even if our souls are saved, our souls are still sick. Obviously, there are varying degrees of soul sickness, but our souls are all sick. It really all goes back to the third chapter of Genesis. The whole story of the Garden of Eden, the whole story of Adam and Eve is really my story. The whole story of Adam and Eve and the story of Eden is your story. We have all rebelled against God. We have all partaken from the forbidden fruit, we are all trying to hide from the presence of God, and we are all broken and damaged at the level of our soul. We have all sinned, the Bible says. We have all fallen short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no not one. It says that before a Holy God our righteousness is like filthy rags. We are all bozos on the bus, as we have so often said. We are all messed up. We are reminded of that all of the time.
A few months ago, I had a kind of unusual Sunday. I love that on Sunday mornings after each of the three services, I get to talk to many of you. After each service, I stay around down front almost always, sometimes for quite a while. I stay to talk I love talking to you. I feel like I have gotten to know many of you just from being down here after church on Sunday morning. Some of you come up and want to share some encouragement to me, you have a funny story, or maybe you have a concern, or a hurt or wound and you want some prayer. There are a whole bunch of different reasons. It has been a joy for me, a privilege for me through the years to talk to so many of you.
Occasionally I have kind of a strange morning, where it just seems I have a lot of deeply hurting people who are running life through a really weird grid, and maybe running my message through a really weird grid. After the middle service a couple of months ago, I was standing down here and a line began to form. The first guy that talked to me shared with me that he was at a hard point in life. I could see frustration on his face. He shared with me that he was out of a job and he was in need of money. I told him how sorry I was, and I prayed for him and told him about our Deacon’s Fund, which can help people in our church who are in need. But it turned out he wasn’t a member, so I told him about our Manna Ministry and how we’re willing to help non-members. We help people with food and clothing and other ways, sometimes even financially.
So I told him about that and he then explained to me that he’d already tried all these things. He’d talked to our pastoral care department and he said he had received help from them, but he was starting to be discouraged by them. And he told me he wanted me to exercise my authority and command the people in the Deacon’s Fund and the Manna Ministry to write him checks. And I said, well, you know, I don’t have that kind of authority. We have systems in place in the church and I just don’t have that kind of unilateral authority. And he was very upset with me, and he walked away, and I was feeling pretty upset too because I knew he was frustrated with me.
The next guy stepped forward and said he was without a job and was really wanting a job and I told him I would love to pray for him because I believe God provides for us. And I started telling him about a lot of options where he could get support in looking for a job, and finally he said, “No! I want you to give me a job.” And I said, “You want me to give you a job at the church?” And he said, “No, I want you to give me a job out in the business community.” And I said, “I can’t do that.” And he said, “Come on, you’re probably the most connected person I’ve ever seen. You know all these CEOs. Give me a job! What kind of pastor are you?” And I was just like, “I’m the kind of pastor who can’t give everybody a job.”
So he leaves, all mad, and I’m just feeling really frustrated, and the next guys says that he’d like to talk about Calvinism and free will and predestination. And I said, “Well you know, I have got another service coming up. I have to get back to the office. I have to go to the bathroom, but make an appointment. Call the church and make an appointment and we will talk about Predestination and Calvinism.” He said, “I want to talk now, aren’t you available?” By the time I got back to the office there was about two minutes before the 10:45 service. I got to the office and I just threw myself into the chair and just flopped down into it in frustration. Barb was in the office and she said, “What is wrong?” I said, “I don’t want to go back to the next service.”
I think I am messed up too. There are just a lot of hurting people in this world. We are all a little soul-sick for so many reasons and in so many ways. This is the church of Jesus Christ and we are here to try and help. We have a wonderful counseling department. The Bible tells us that not only are souls sick, but souls can be healed. The Bible tells us that souls can be soothed and souls can be comforted. In our Counseling Department, our Pastoral Care Department, we have Carson, Brett, Brad, and Evie, and we have Kathryn and Claudia and Mary Ellen—all of this wonderful staff that are trained to help you and who really care about you and love you.
We have community groups. I can’t imagine trying to go it alone. That is why Christ called the church into existence, so that we would learn to love each other, and we would have each other’s backs. We have hundreds of community groups. A lot of you are not in a community group. I believe you should be. I know groups are messy because we are messy and messed up. I know that at times we are probably all a little hard to love. We all have different kinds of personalities and different eccentricities, but God brings us together and teaches us to love each other.
These community groups are so good for the soul. We want people to join a community group so that they can experience what it means to be yourself, what it means to belong, and what it means to become. We feel like you ought to join a community group and just be yourself and feel free to be yourself. In the midst of being yourself, you find people really do love you and care about you. Also, in the community group you can learn what it means not just to be yourself, but what it means to belong. You can be a part of a group that cares about you. You can have people who pray for you and you can have the privilege of praying for others. You can have people who have your back and you can have someone else’s back. That is part of what it means to be in the body of Christ.
In these community groups, we learn what it means to become, because God is always trying to change us and to grow us. Christ has the power to transform us. I think two of his biggest tools are marriage and community groups. In marriage you have this transforming power through the intimacy of the marriage relationship. I think in community groups you have the body of Christ, brothers and sisters, in the midst of all of their diversity learning to love. It is a powerful, powerful thing.
We have, right now, 150 openings in our small groups. We have a few thousand people in small groups, but 150 spots are open right now for people who could join. Maybe you would want to join a small group. We also have the leadership class that Mark mentioned where we are going to create more openings, at least 125 more openings. We should be around 300 open spots in community groups coming up right now. You can go online today and take advantage of this tremendous opportunity.
I want to take a moment and just say a few words about the body. It is not just with regard to the soul that it is your move, because souls are lost and need to be found and souls are sick and need to be healed. It is not just with regard to the soul it is your move, bit also it is with regard to your body that it is your move. The Bible tells us a lot about the body and the Bible view of the body is holistic.
I want to recommend a book to you called Every Body Matters. It is by Gary Thomas, who wrote Sacred Marriage, which is another awesome book. This book is a book we are going through as a staff and it is a book that we are going through in some of our community groups. Many of us here at the church are going through this together over these next six weeks while we do this series on Your Move: Body and Soul. As I have read this book I have got to say, it is awesome. It helps you understand the Biblical view of body and soul, the holistic link between body and soul. It is a wonderful book.
The Biblical view of the body is holistic. You understand the body in terms of its union with the soul. The teachings of the Bible are very different than the teachings of the Eastern religions, Buddhism and Hinduism, because they really don’t view the body and soul as linked. There is this view in Buddhism and Hinduism that it is almost a platonic dualism where the soul is considered good and the body is considered evil, or even illusionary. The whole purpose of samsara, the whole goal of karma, transformation for the purpose of attaining moksha, is to escape the body and never have to have a body again. That is not the Biblical view. The Bible has a high view of the body and views the body and the soul as both precious to God.
The Bible teaches that both the body and the soul are good and valued by God. The body is so important that one day God is going to give us all a new one. His goal is always to be a body soul union in perpetuity, ad infinitum, forever and ever. We will always be a body soul union. 1 Corinthians 15 describes the new body. God values your current body and wants you to be a good steward of it and one day he is going to give you a new body. Jesus cared about the body; he didn’t just minister to the soul. Go through the pages of the gospels and you will see his care for the body, how he wept for those who had lost loved ones and he ministered to the body. He healed people of leprosy, he healed the deaf, the blind, and the dumb, and the lame, and he raised the dead. He cared about the physical body.
This isn’t just a New Testament concept. You can go to the Old Testament and look at Leviticus chapter 11 and Deuteronomy chapter 14, you can see the Levitical dietary laws and you can say, “Why? Why did God provide dietary laws?” They were all given in light of the way food was prepared and stored at that time in history. God gave these laws to protect the bodies of his people that they might be healthy. You can look at the purification laws in Leviticus 12, 13 and 14, and you can say, “What is that about?” The laws of purification and the rituals of purification were oftentimes for the health of the body and the warding off of disease.
God, in both the Old and New Testaments, has this great care for the body. In James and in 1 Corinthians, you see the understanding that the body and soul are linked and, sometimes, bodily diseases are linked to sick souls. You really have to deal with the soul to heal the body. Sometimes there needs to be repentance and forgiveness in order for God’s healing to take place. You see this holistic view of man as body and soul.
The biblical view of the body is not simply holistic, but it is also sacred. The Bible has a sacred view of the body. Our two scripture passages for today have some controversy attached to them. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 says, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? Whoever destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him, for God’s temple is holy and that temple you are.” There was a period of time in church history where this scripture was interpreted wrongly. Many church leaders thought it had to do with suicide and the unforgivable sin of suicide. “Do you not know you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? Whoever destroys God’s temple, whoever commits suicide, God will destroy him because God’s temple is holy and that temple you are.”
It is a complete misunderstanding of 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 because when you properly interpret the Greek and you do proper Greek exegesis you see that it is not even talking about individuals in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. It is talking about the body of Christ corporately. The “you” is plural, it is a corporate “you” in the Greek language. The message is about the church and what it is really saying is, “Do you, the church, not know that the church (you plural, you corporate) is the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in the church? Whoever destroys the church, God will destroy him because the church is holy and the church you are.” That is the clear meaning of 1 Corinthians chapter 3. It has nothing to do with suicide and it does not teach that suicide is beyond pardon. It is about the church and what it is saying is that it is a scary thing to do anything harmful to the church. Jesus said, “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” He said, “The church is my bride and one day I will bring her home with me.” You don’t want to do anything that would damage the church.
Go to 1 Corinthians 6, starting with verse 19, and now it is talking about you as an individual. It is “you” singular, and it is you as a person. It is saying, ”Do you not know that your body, your individual body, your personal body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you which you have from God, which is a gift from God? You are not your own, you were bought with a price as Christ saved you with his blood. Glorify God, therefore, in your body.” He has come to live within you now, so glorify him in your body. The way you use your body with regard to morality, the way you take care of your body with regard to stewardship and medicine and diet and exercise, all of this is important to God.
The biblical view of the body is sacred, but the biblical view is also stewardly. We need to be good stewards of the body. We have this constant teaching in the Bible. The Bible therefore warns us about gluttony, and the Bible warns us about drunkenness. It is your move. Every day you have got to make some choices with regard to your body and how you are going to care for it and how you are going to treat it—what you are going to eat, what you’re going to drink, and how much you are going to eat and how much you are going to drink. It is all part of stewardship of the body, and it is your move. God is watching and one day we will have to give an account.
The word for gluttony in the Bible is “gaster,” or sometimes the word for gluttony is “phagos.” There are a variety of Biblical Greek words for gluttony. A lot of Christians don’t seem to be aware of the fact that gluttony is a sin biblically. I have often thought that in the Evangelical Christian world it is the one acceptable sin. I grew up in Evangelical churches where we had tons of potlucks. There is nothing wrong with a potluck; in fact, potlucks are biblical. In the New Testament we are told that the early church gathered in each other’s homes daily, they broke bread and shared food and had the agape meal in the early church. Everybody brought food and shared it with others. Potlucks are what the early church had. You have to be a good steward.
I went to potlucks where it just seemed like people would take their plate to the table and build a volcano and eat it all and go back and build another volcano and eat that and go back and build another one. It was acceptable. The word “gaster,” the word for gluttony, literally means “belly.” It is often times joined in the New Testament with “argos,” “argos gaster,” “slow belly.” We get so big it is hard to move. The Bible says it is wrong. I know the complexities that relate to body size. I know God has crafted us all a little differently. We aren’t all designed to have the same shape. I know people might be large for a variety of reasons, I know there can be hormonal factors and all kind of physiological, biological factors. Oftentimes we simply don’t eat right, we don’t make the right move, and we don’t make the right choices.
You might have noticed on Fox News about a week ago the largest hamburger ever just set the Guinness Book of World Records world record for the largest hamburger in the history of the world. This hamburger was crafted by a Minnesota casino, which apparently had nothing else to do. This one-ton cheeseburger weighs 2,014 pounds. It has to be good for you because there are 60 pounds of lettuce in it and there are 50 pounds of chopped sliced onions and there is also 40 pounds of sliced dill pickles. Look at the vegetables you are getting in this thing. The hamburger patty weighs 1,300 pounds and there is 60 pounds of cheese.
I was thinking, “This ought to be our national symbol right here.” It doesn’t look that tasty, although Fox News said it actually tasted great. Marcia Schultz, at the first service, said it looked like a bunch of people have sat on the bun. It does kind of look like that. This ought to be our national symbol. We ought to put it on the great seal of the United States instead of the pyramid; it ought to be the burger. I think we live in a country where portion size is out of control. We are a country where we eat too much. It is not always what we eat, it is the amount we eat. Portion size is a really hard deal. This is part of stewardship.
Exercise is a part of stewardship. First Timothy 4:8 is an important verse in the Bible. Barbara’s dad, my father-in-law, when he was alive for years would quote this. He would kind of misquote it because he used the Old King James. The verse says, “Bodily exercise is of some value.” And the Old King James said, “Bodily exercise profiteth nothing.” Barb’s dad would always quote that to us. If I was coming back from a jog, “Bodily exercise profiteth nothing.” The real verse in the Greek says, “Bodily exercise is of some value.” “Spiritual training is for this life and the life to come, but bodily exercise is of value for this life.” The Apostle Paul said he disciplined his body, he subdued his body, lest after preaching to others he himself should be judged. The reality is that there needs to be self-discipline in the matter of exercise and diet. All of these things are part of body and soul and the choices that we make and learning to make the right move.
In Saddleback Church in California where Rick Warren is the pastor, they have this new program called the Daniel Plan. You can go on their website and read all about it. It is a huge church where 14,000 people have signed up for the Daniel Plan. It is based on Daniel chapter one where Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were Jewish captives living in exile in Babylon, refused to eat the king’s rich food because they did not want to give any indication that they were living to honor the king. They had their own king, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They ate just vegetables and water instead of the food the king gave them.
On the basis of that, Saddleback Church has tried to come up with a diet. 14,000 people signed up for it and 12,500 are still on it. As a congregation, they have lost 250,000 pounds, 18 pounds per person. It is what some churches are realizing. God cares not just about our souls, but he cares about our bodies. You will be happy to know we are not going to do the Daniel Plan here, but we are wanting to encourage you to be good stewards of your body.
Two weeks from now we are going to have a bike or walk to church Sunday. We are going to provide for that to make it work. We hope the weather will cooperate. We want to encourage you all who are able to be a part of that. It should be a fun Sunday.
In our community groups, we are going to find ways for our community groups to add some accountability. Obviously, we want food to not only be healthy but fun, but to provide some kind of accountability and what that might look like in regard to diet and exercise, even for our community groups to offer opportunities for outdoor recreation together. Many community groups get together on a Saturday to take a hike or a bike ride, and all kinds of fun things. Barb is part of a group of gals here at the church. They are all members of the church and love Christ, but they gather every week and they do exercise together. Sometimes the husbands join when there is food involved. They do snow skiing, hiking, and kayaking, and all kinds of fun things.
We are just wanting to take the next six weeks and take a look at what it means to honor Christ in our lives and to make the right moves with regard to our souls as well as our bodies, remembering that souls are lost apart from Christ and need to be found and remembering souls are sick and Christ has called his church to minister to them, and remembering as well that our bodies are temples. The church collectively is a temple, but our individual bodies are also temples and we need to glorify God in our bodies. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.