A New Body // A New Page, Part 2

Sometimes we head off into the new year with great expectations – and yet, we just don’t look after ourselves.  Our body.  What we eat.  Exercise.  Sleep.  And so what happens, is that our bodies let us down.

One of the things that I notice from time to time is how easy it is to over spiritualise things. There seems to be two opposite ends of the spectrum, two extremes if you like. Over spiritualising and under spiritualising. Some people go about their lives without any real sense of there being a spiritual dimension to things. But there is, it's powerful, it is God’s dimension and the devil’s dimension too, let's not forget that. We deny the spiritual dimension at our peril.

The other extreme though, is to over spiritualise. I've seen that a lot of in my life too. People, who wonderfully, passionately believe in God and yet, they kind of use that as a haven to ignore the physical realities of their lives. For instance, I've visited a lot of Churches over the years and one of the things that I've almost never heard is a sermon on how to look after your body.

Truly, people are going through tough times and so they pray and they believe and they pray and they believe and all the time, they're 30 or 40 pounds overweight. Not exercising, not sleeping properly and wondering why their emotions are on some roller coaster ride. Well let’s have a little bit of a poke around and have a look at that today, on the program.

This week is kind of the start of a new year. It's a great time to have a look at what it means to turn a new page in our lives. So many people are in a rut and what we want to do is, when we're in a rut, we want to change our circumstances when all along, the problem isn't the rut that we're in, it's the mould that we're in. It's not the path that we're travelling, it's the shape that we're in.

The apostle Paul knew that. He wrote in Romans, chapter 12, beginning at verse 2:

Don't be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may discern what is the good and perfect and acceptable will of God.

In other words, don't let the world squeeze you into its mould. Break the mould, get out of it. Let God renew your heart and your mind so that you can figure out what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God for your life. And see, we are complex people, we're physical, we're emotional, we're spiritual. That's what Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 23:

May the God of peace Himself, sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and your soul and your body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Spirit. Soul. Body. Today I want to have a look at the body. See, many people get touchy about the body. I used to get touchy about my body when I was hugely overweight. See, we live in a society that says you're only beautiful if you're trim, taught and terrific, especially women, right?

And then, on the other hand, you have these TV programs and the ads on TV and they say, "Oh look, hang all that, eat whatever you want, drink whatever you want, you're beautiful whoever you are. It's okay to eat anything, it's okay to be overweight" … and on it goes.

Let me be really blunt. The body makes a huge difference to how much we enjoy our lives. Our body's important, not because of what other people think, not to measure up to their images of beauty and success, that's not important, let's not even go there.

Now, I am who I am. I can't grow any taller, I can't change my face, you know what I mean? This is the wrapping that God gave me but you know something else, this body of mine and this body of yours, our body's a temple and I don't mean that in some "new agey, swami" kind of way. Have a listen to what God has to say about our bodies in 1 Corinthians, chapter 6, verse 19:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you which you have from God and that you are not your own.

See, the person who says, "Yeah, I believe in Jesus" – this is what happens. The Spirit of God comes to dwell in us, in my body. I have the very Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, dwelling in me and if you believe in Jesus, so do you.

Now if I knew that the Son of God, Jesus, was coming to my place tonight, to have dinner, to visit, you know what, my hunch is I'd make sure the place was clean and tidy, not a mess, don't you think? So why is it that we can believe in Jesus, believe that the Holy Spirit dwells in us and yet, we keep the place a mess?

See, our body is a complex, intricate machine. All the studies on robotics and computers, they haven't come anywhere close to the mechanical and cognitive abilities of human beings. Let alone intelligence and emotion and intuition, all those other uniquely human qualities. And sure we're complex but actually, the body's a very simple thing to look after. We only need three things, the right food, a moderate amount of exercise and a good night’s sleep most nights.

Now Berni, as I was saying before, I am a naturally overweight person. I naturally eat too much because I love food. I'm naturally not good at exercising; I naturally over work myself and don't get enough sleep. As you can see, I'm not one of these health nuts on the television. I'm not one of these guys that has muscles on their muscles. I'm pretty much your ordinary, everyday kind of guy, who is naturally at the lower end of the health and fitness spectrum.

All my life I've struggled with weight. All my life I've tried to run away from exercise. All my life I didn't get enough sleep. Until a while ago, my body was such a wreck and it didn't matter how much I prayed or how much I read my Bible or how much I preached, I was going to have a miserable life and it was going to be a shorter life than it should have been.

So, I decided "That's it, no more excuses, it's time to do something about this". It was hard. I had to change my diet, I had to start exercising regularly and I started making sure that most nights, I got a decent night’s sleep, 7 to 8 hours.

Now, over a few months, I lost 44 pounds or 20 kilos and now, these days, I feel absolutely terrific. I have so much energy, I can do so much more, it's amazing. I wouldn't swap it and I've probably extended my life by a good 5 to 10 to 15 years.

People ask me, "How did you do that?" Simple, I took the fats and the sugars out of my diet. I replaced them with vegetables and lean meat and a moderate amount of carbohydrates and I made sure that I walked at least 3 times a week and hey presto. I didn't just lose the weight; I am now maintaining my lower weight. It's that simple.

Now, it was hard. It involved sacrifice. But now I don't have the mood swings, now I sleep well at nights. This is not rocket science is it?

We can't enjoy our lives when our emotions are being torn apart by a body that's out of shape. This is not about being the skinniest or the best looking or the most muscular or the fittest person on the planet. It's not about fitting into other people's moulds and images of beauty. It's simply about making sure that we take good care of the only body that God is going to give us for living on this earth.

Do you see how easy it is to over spiritualise? "Oh, I'll just pray. Oh, I'll just read my Bible." They are good things but if your body is a mess, let me tell you, you're not going to have a fun life. For some of the people listening today, you know what the problems are with the way that you treat your body, you know. And you know the simple things that you need to do to fix that.

We're standing on the threshold of a new year, we're standing on the cusp of a new page, a new year with new possibilities and yet, your body's letting you down. Can I ask you to do something? Do not make a New Year's resolution because 99% of them fail.

Can I ask you to get down on your knees and pray and decide before God that you're going to clean up His temple this year, that's what you're going to do, forget everything else, get the body back into shape?