Okay. According to Strava, a very popular fitness tracking app. Tomorrow, January 19th is called Quitter's Day. It is the peak quitting day for everybody who set a New Year's resolution related to physical fitness. We can't even make it through three weeks without giving up. And there are a lot of cultural forces arraigned against us. I can particularly relate to this one restaurant Dairy Queen that had the to Mary put this on their sign. Dairy Queen ruining your New Year's resolutions since 1962. Kurt hinted at this problem last week. If we set resolutions without the why, we're gonna eventually give up on the how. And so as we talk about resetting at the first few months of this year, I wanna suggest a different motivation for physical fitness. That it's not about how we look, it's about who we worship and who we serve. That taking care of our bodies, what kind of sleep we get, how we handle stress, how active we are and what we eat is actually an aspect, not just of Christian discipleship, but of worship.
Now let me just say I, I know how sensitive this is. I'm not here to make anybody feel guilty. I wanna suggest right at the start, consider who Kurt had to preach this sermon. If he wanted to make all of us feel guilty, he could have signed it to another staff member named Jim Hendrix, who has 37 children and looks like he could be an Avengers movie. I, I will never be cast in an Avengers movie. This last week I saw a statistic that 41% of us believe we need to lose weight, but we're not necessarily in touch with reality. 'cause The CDC says 74% of us actually need to lose weight. Maybe a lot of us, like me have just learned to avoid mirrors. I don't know. And we don't wanna overstress weight. Dr. Mark Hyman, who my wife and I love to listen to and read, has stressed that muscle matters more than weight.
But I can't kid myself this, this is not muscle for me. Maybe some of you have these monstrously strong abs. I, I don't know. But I'm, I'm speaking to you as a fellow struggler and it's a little embarrassing then to address this. But just because I struggle with something as many of you do, doesn't mean it's not true. So as we go into a season of resetting, we wanna remind ourselves why maybe we wanna go past peak quitting day, that the person that we worship and serve might give us motivation to go a little bit longer verse, I wanna use Romans 12, one. It's familiar to many of you. Paul says this, offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual worship. What I love about this verse though, it's an imperative. Do this for me. It gives great comfort because see, my body isn't pleasing to me right now.
And maybe you feel the same way or maybe you don't think it's pleasing to your spouse or to your friends or to your doctor, whatever it is. But Paul says, the very minute you offer your body to God as an instrument to serve him, you don't have to gain a pound of muscle. You don't have to lose a pound. That very moment your body becomes pleasing to God, whose opinion matters more than God's. It's a great way that we can look at this from an entirely different aspect. This is the joy of serving Jesus. This is reason 1,150,000 Why we wanna worship Jesus, that because of Jesus we can address even this very physical challenge with an entirely different spiritual motivation. Because because of Jesus, our holiness and acceptance before God doesn't rest on the shape of our bodies, but on the acceptable sacrifice of Jesus's broken and bruised body when we just sang, Jesus changes everything.
He changes even the way we look at this. But that does lead us to a different attitude. What does it mean to offer my body as a servant to God as an instrument? It means primarily when we're talking about physical fitness, we're not motivated trying to make our bodies look like ornaments. Something that everybody will look at and admire and say how much self-discipline we have. Instead of trying to become ornaments that draw attention to ourselves, we wanna become like instruments used by God to love, serve, and minister to others. Now, you don't wanna take it too far because you still take care of an instrument. That doesn't mean we ignore our bodies. If God gives you a stratus to play, I hope you don't use it to flat to swat flies. But it gives a new sense of glory and honor to these physical bodies, even if we don't feel like they're currently in the shape that we wish they were.
Pastor told me about one time he was in the room with an elderly couple when the husband passed away, he was in his late eighties, early nineties. It had been a long slow decline as his body gradually gave way. And after he breathed his last breath, his wife now widow was there and she just kind of stood there looking at the body of the man she had been married to for over 60 years. She went up to the front of the bed and she kinda ran her hand through his hair. She took his cheeks between her two palms, gave his lips one last kiss, brought her hands down to his shoulders and was just kind of squeezing his shoulders and kept it going down his arms. She got to his torso and she's patting his legs till she gets to the foot of the bed.
Takes both feet in both hands. And she's just sort of rubbing his feet, looking at the body of the man that she loved and had been married to for decades. And he said she was saying goodbye to the body of this man. Now, it wasn't a body because of his age and the infirmity and the medical issues he had. Nobody would say, oh, there is a glorious body. But it was to her 'cause it was the body of a man who used that body to serve her, to protect her, to provide for her, to please her, to walk with her, to laugh with her. And she's just saying, goodbye. Thank you. He used this body to be married to me for so long and it was pleasing to her and she wanted to say goodbye. And it's like that when we offer our bodies to God, it's pleasing to him because of what he does in and through us.
And I stress that because while the world often overvalues the body in the terms of its being an ornament or appearance, it's Christians, we kind of try to push back and we undervalue the body. Well, if they're gonna overvalue appearance, we're just gonna say appearance doesn't matter at all. But we could fall off on either end. Look, if you spend five days in the gym lifting weights, but you never pick up your Bible, you might be creating a beautiful ornament, but you're not tuning your instrument to be an active servant of God. And scripture would call you to reevaluate your priorities. On the other hand, if you lift up your Bible five times a day, but you ignore your body, you don't take care of your physical body, your instrument might get out of tune and it might end up not even being able to play.
Robert Murray McShane was an incredible 19th century preacher ahead of his time. He was 23 when he entered ministry, soon had a church of over a thousand, which back then those things just didn't exist. He was dynamic and charismatic and he threw himself into the work of the church. He worked himself tirelessly, but he ended up dying at the age of 29. And when he knew he was about to leave this earth, he said, regretfully to a friend, God gave me a message to deliver and a horse to ride. Alas, I've killed the horse and now I cannot deliver the message. See, for some of you, you say, I'm just gonna use it, use it, use it. And, and this message would say, no, we need to take care of it or we can't be used anymore. There's a consistent message throughout scripture that holiness does involve our physical bodies.
It's not just our hearts. It's not just our minds, but our body. Second Corinthians seven, one, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit perfecting holiness. Why out of reverence for God there we get to worship. We treat our bodies because we reverence God. One of the key passages for this is one Corinthians six 20, do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit? Who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. You are bought at a price, therefore honor God with your bodies. This may be the most offensive verse to a lot of people in our culture. In the entire New Testament. We claim our bodies. We say, this is my body. Take your hands off. This is it. And and Paul would say, not if you're a believer, when you offer your body to God, he saves your soul.
But he claims your body for his service. And when we have that attitude, this doesn't belong to me. It's not about what I'm willing to live with. What I think is okay, it's am I keeping the body that God has given me that God claims as his own? Am I keeping it in the kind of shape that he can use? It changes the way we look at our bodies. Back before sacred marriage was published, one of the ways I helped feed my family was to do books with famous Christian celebrities. I'd helped them write their books. One of 'em was one of the finest men I've ever met. John Ashcroft. He'd been a two term governor in Missouri, been a senator. There were whispers that he might run for president. Really wish he would've. I think it would've been phenomenal. He was a man of deep faith and integrity.
As we were working on the book, we came up to a section and we had to close 'cause his schedule was tight. He said, Gary, I want you to take this file. And he showed me this file. He had some handwritten letters from his dad who he had a great relationship with. Personal anecdotes on notes and speeches he gave. He goes, take this file, look through it, and next week we'll get together and see what we can use. I didn't wanna take the file because I'm terrible at handling paper. I've lost more files than I could count. I'm always rerunning off files and whatnot and I'm trying to protest Senator, no, please, let's make copies. I don't want to take the originals. But he was such a man of integrity. He would not make 30 copies in his Senate office because it was a private book.
That's the kind of man he is. He said, Gary, you're responsible young man. I trust you, you'll be fine. That whole week I lived in fear and I knew where that file was. Every minute of the day, I've lost more files than I could count. But I didn't lose that file. Why it wasn't mine. And it belonged to somebody who is very important. I thought, what happens if he is elected president and they're writing his biography and somebody says, well, what happened in this season of his life? And the critics will say, we don't know. Some idiot hack writer lost the file. We just kinda have to guess. And so because of the importance of the message and who it was that was speaking it, I took care of that file.
We report to the creator of the universe. And our message is more important than a memoir. It is the reconciling power of the gospel. And so we treat our bodies with a new reverence as we reverence God. And so when we're on a number of weeks talking about resetting, when we talk about the spiritual disciplines, why are we getting so physical? Because resetting the physical can be a doorway to spiritual fitness. Friend of mine is Karen Yates. I've known her and her husband Curtis, for for decades. They had two kids. They decided to do an international adoption from Ethiopia for the third child. And Karen said at the time, kind of jokingly, well, I wanna be able to have a baby without having to gain all the baby weight. You know, that really wasn't why, but it was just sort of the joke that young moms often talk about.
But the stress of getting a child from Ethiopia and bringing that child into their home. And she already had two toddlers and the issues that little Daniel had and whatnot, got her so stressed out that about nine months later after he was in their home, she had gained about as much weight as she did doina pregnancy. And she felt worse and worse about herself. And it seemed to be like a snowball going downhill. She said this, my world felt very small. I felt trapped in my own house. I took care of everyone but felt invisible. I knew I was loved. But as a young mother, you pour everything into your very needy young children. I wasn't taking care of myself. And I've seen this so often and and I love it because it's out of good motives. A young mom who gives and gives and gives, she gives to her kids, she gives to her parents, she gives to her friends and her church and her husband.
She feels guilty taking any time to take care of herself. Husbands, we must not let that happen. Our wives, physical health matters. We can't let them feel like they're guilty for taking off some time to themselves. And it's true for husbands as well. Wives with your husbands. My daughter-in-law is so wonderful with my son in this way. He's got a very demanding job in New York City. But he does triathlons and and she gives him time and supports him to get that exercise because they realize even with the busy life, physical fitness is important. In fact even becomes more important in many ways to fulfill the duties and responsibilities that you have. But after months of this physical and spiritual seesaw, caring didn't like where she was at, she said, I didn't think I looked very attractive. I didn't feel noticed. I didn't feel very beautiful with Curtis.
I was no longer his girlfriend. I was his frumpy wife and the mother of his kids. It's not that he made me feel that way. Not at all. I felt it all on my own. Now here's the thing. Now, worst she felt about herself. Physically the worst. She started acting spiritually. She was forgetting her devotions. She wasn't getting into the word. She wasn't naturally worshiping as she walked along the day, she felt like the two went together, that it just was not working out for her. She was getting through the days, but not using the days. She would sit on the couch with her kids and and eat their snacks. And it seemed like it was getting worse and worse. Now, some spiritual counselors might tell her, Karen, you need to repent. You need to fast. You need to pray, you need to worship more, you need to get into the Bible.
But Karen decided to take a different track and it worked really well for her. She started playing volleyball again. She calls it her volleyball therapy. She had been a volleyball player in college. So she was pretty good. Now she was rusty. She was not in shape. But with humility, she went out there, she started getting going. It started to come back to her. And those two nights of playing volleyball started to set a positive ball rolling in motion. Now when she's with the kids, instead of just sitting in front of television, they're going for walks. After a couple weeks of that, she would jog a little bit with the stroller and then she would go for absolute runs on their own. And as she did that, her spiritual devotion started to take place. She felt like she had more energy. Those worship songs in her mind were coming back again.
Physical fitness for Karen became a doorway for renewed spiritual health. Not just to be there more for her family and her husband and her children, but more as a ministry. She began working with an international ministry of adoption for Christians who adopt international children. You see, when she was not feeling well physically, she thought more and more about herself in a negative way. She started to take care of herself and she felt better and better and thought more and more about others. How can God use me as an instrument to serve him? And it's just easy. We all have busy seasons like Karen did, and it's so easy to let them take ourselves away. Maybe out of good motives. We feel like we just don't have time to take care of ourselves and we're just coping to get through the day. But those short term cures can have brutal long-term consequences.
My physician back in Bellingham, Washington years ago, he was a great guy. He would run marathons, we'd talk running together and whatnot. He told him about one of his patients whose numbers were just cratering. He was doing everything wrong, his cholesterol and everything, he was way overweight. He smoked. There was no exercise. And finally this doctor said, I don't wanna just treat his symptoms. And he said to his patient, look, we can't just keep prescribing things. Let's address some of the problems. What do you think about giving up the smoking? And the business said, doctor, I, I can't. I work 12 hours a day. That nicotine, I need it. It gets me going in the morning. It keeps me going in the afternoon. I need the focus and say, all right, well let's, let's talk about the weight. Maybe you can give up the nightly ice cream and it could become something you just do on the weekend.
Maybe Friday, Saturday. Doctor, I can't. That's my reward. I work so hard, I'm thinking forward to it. I gotta have it in the evening. Alright, how about we start introducing some walks, half an hour at lunch, 15 minutes at lunch, maybe in the evening. Doctor, you understand, I can't leave. What do my employees think? If they see their boss leaving in the middle of the day to take a walk, they'll all do that. And I get home after it's dark. You don't understand what it's like for a businessman. And then he looked at his patient and said, then you need to prepare to die. I can't keep you alive If you're getting through these days with things that might get you through the day, but they're going to steal your years if you don't address what's going on. And that's what happens to so many of us.
We find these things that comfort us, but in the end, they might kill us. I talked to one woman one time who raised horses. I don't remember what kind, but this particular horse, she said, you had to be really careful when there was a barn fire. She'd lead 'em out by the reins. And she said, you learn, you gotta keep holding onto 'em during the fire because if you let go, the horses were run right back into the burning barn. I'm like, why would a horse run back into a burning barn? She's explaining the psychology that a horse feels safest and most secure and it's stable. There's something about the way a horse thinks. It just wants to always go home. How many of you ever rented a horse where you go on those rides and you start to turn that horse back toward home? You can't stop it, man. It has its own mind. It's going there. It's just sort of the psychology of a horse. It wants to go where it feels safe and secure. So it sees this fire, it sees a barn burning down, but it thinks I will be most safe. I will feel most secure when I get to my stall. Even if doing that will kill it.
Isn't that what we often do? We feel shame, we feel fear, regret. And so we think I'm gonna go to that barn. That's where I'm gonna feel safe. What's your barn? And my wife pointed out my barn to me when we got married, my barn is sugar. Growing up sugar's, what made me feel better? I used to sprinkle sugar on frosted flakes and crisp cereal. I like to have those little bowls that would capture the sugar. Never really outgrew it though. My wife has worked hard to do that. I remember when my first book came out, I was so excited I could finally have a book table and I was speaking at a benefit dinner and I thought I finally have a book to put out. I'm so excited. Now looking back, I now know 'cause it's decades later, you don't really plan to sell a lot of books at a benefit dinner 'cause they're not there to hear you. They're there for the ministry or the nonprofit. If you do your job, they'll give so much money. They don't have money left over to buy a book. And I wasn't in a place of the country known for its literacy. I mean, I don't wanna slam any geography, so I'll just, I won't name. I'll just say it was west of Virginia that I was speaking at .
And so I gave this talk and it went really well. People were laughing. There's a story where people were crying. There's a standing ovation. They're giving their money. I thought this is great. I rushed back to my book table expecting that, you know, I I need more people. It's gonna be a long line. And it was like a stampede past my table. I didn't sell a single book, not even one. And I felt, I mean, I felt fear. What, what does this mean? How if I can talk well and I can't even sell a book, how am I gonna have a future at this? I felt humiliated. It's embarrassing. So I get into my car after that and I'm like, I just felt awful. I knew what will make me feel better. I'm gonna go to that wonderful place called Dairy Queen. I'm gonna get the m and m blizzard.
I'm gonna get the fries with fat and salt. And I did feel better for a little bit the next morning. I'm praying, and I can remember this today, God challenging me. Gary, why did you do that? You felt fear, you felt humiliation, embarrassment. But is this a healthy way to respond? And I can be so stupid. I-I-I-I-I can sort of focus on this and that. I'm like, God, come on. Look at what other men on their own do. I I i, is it a scandal to go to Dairy Queen? Is that gonna get me fired? But you can't argue with God saying, Gary, is this the healthy way to respond? And I wish I would've listened more. I I mean, throughout the rest of my life, I was running a couple marathons a year. I could, I could overcome a little bit of going to a Dairy queen too much.
But he was telling me, this is not a healthy barn for you to run into. And I'm in a place where it, it's always there. There's certain sins that you can, you know, quarantine. But man, when you're a sugar addict, I, I remember being in a church in Houston and they had this kitchen where people would dump things after they went on vacations. And somebody went to Hawaii every year and they'd leave these big boxes of chocolate covered macadamia nuts. Have any of you ever had those? They're like crack to a sugar addict. And here's a problem. Macadamia nuts have more calories and fat than any other nut. That's why we cover them in chocolate, right? , it's the American way. And so I can't get away from that. It's going to follow me even when I'm in church.
What's your burning barn to reset? Let's at least know what it is. Maybe for some of you it's looking at things you shouldn't look at and, and you're polluting your brain. Maybe it's drinking things you shouldn't drink. I know that alcohol is not, it's not having its day with nutrition scientists while they say, you know what occasional drinks bodies can probably handle, but regular drinking or aggressive drinking, it is not particularly good for us. Maybe like me, it's eating something you shouldn't eat. And I would say to the younger people, I think we should do a whole sermon on this, what pot is doing to young brains. Take the morality aside. I'm just talking about scientific research, what it does to, to delay mental development, intellectual development, how it arrests emotional development. And I see young people, I understand it is stressful to be a young person and it may feel like getting high helps you get through a stressful season.
But it is going to keep you from being a mature adult. You're impacting your brain in such a negative way. Maybe it's so busy streaming, you don't have any time to exercise. Not getting enough sleep. What happens is all of these barns we run into, keep us from going out into fresh air and doing what all of us are called to do. The glorious invitation that Jesus says in Matthew 6 33, seek first the kingdom of God. You were created and saved to serve God. To build God's kingdom, an eternal kingdom. And here's the thing, I promise you, there will be a day when you see Jesus face to face. And out of all of the things you'll wish you have done, you'll wish you had sought first the kingdom of God over earning more money, over having fun, over creating this or that you'll wish that you had spent more and more time seeking first God's kingdom instead of your own.
But we run into these barns that keep us from pursuing good things that this reminds us. 'cause We can overstress it. That body care for a Christian is in means. It's not the end. We're being instruments, not ornaments. We're not just trying to impress people with our body or with our self-discipline. We're offering them as instruments of service. Paul makes this clear. One Timothy four, eight, physical training is of some value. We don't want to deny that there is some value to it, but godliness has value for all things. And so some need to hear this message and you overemphasize the body. And here's a challenge with that. Lisa and I were in France some years ago. We got to do this private tour of a literal Duke and Duchess castle. We meet the couple. This guy was in his eighties. I doubt he's still around anymore.
He had an amazing story and I read up on some of the history of that and what was so fascinating and I realized what happened with the French Revolution. I didn't realize the unquestioned power that Dukes had. They could have people killed, they could have people freed. They could confiscate property. They could give property. That's why people were so angry. They had it all just because of their bloodline. Now this was a real castle. It was kind of funny because they would go on, normally you meet the Duke and the Duchess and then you, you're taken around by the tour guide. But this guy fell in love with my wife, which I get. I fell in love with my wife. She's easy to fall in love with and he wouldn't leave us . He's following along the whole tour and he and his wife are fighting. He says A proper castle has to have a proper moat. His wife is, oh mosquitoes. We don't want that. And so we knew that they were probably fighting about that once a week, but they would never really fill it in. They were never gonna do that. She was gonna win on that. And so he followed us around. They went into the private chapel and he went up to Lisa and he says, we don't normally do this.
Would you like to meet my ancestors? Lisa's like, okay. And he led us into the chapel. There's this big ornate box. We've got a picture there of him showing the box and then he opens the lid. And here's what Lisa saw. . I just jumped back. Skulls and bones. I wanna point something out that's French nobility, the most powerful people of their day, living in the best houses, eating the best food, wearing the best clothes. And now you can't even recognizing them because they're going to end up a bunch of bones in a box. And for us today, just as likely we end up as a pile of ashes in an urn. That's what is happening. And if you spend your life making your body an ornament, look, there's a certain glory and beauty of being young and athletic and I celebrate that. But it is a short season and you could spend your whole time trying to create this great ornament.
But there's gonna come a time when you end up to be a bunch of bones in a box. But if you offer your body as an instrument for God, you don't have to retire at 35. You're just getting going and you're setting yourself up for eternal, heavenly rewards. I think one of the saddest things is when people don't get this, when they don't have a God to worship and relate to, they still can't get away from trying to make their body an ornament. They get into their forties and fifties and sixties and later and they're still trying to have the same appeal about their body as an ornament. 'cause They've never realized what it means out of worship to make your body an instrument. But for those of us who do want to do a reset and address physical fitness, there are two things we really have to worry about.
Well not worry about, but focus on two things in our society that I think makes us particularly difficult for us. Some ways American culture was designed to create obesity and has been very effective. And one of those ways is just the modern lack of movement. It's our lack of movement. Early on in our human existence, we were hunters, gatherers, or nomads. Then we went from that where we're always moving to becoming subsistence farmers without mechanical tra tractors or equipment like that. 200 years ago we entered the industrial age and you're moving in factories and it's a lot of personal labor, but today is often called the digital age, where a lot of us, not all, but a lot of us were sitting in front of computers, we're sitting in offices. And the difference between the calories burned for our ancestors. And the typical 10 hour period of work today, if you weigh 170 pounds is 765 calories a day.
If you weigh 140 pounds, it's 630 calories. That's how many more calories our grandparents and great-grandparents burned just by being alive and working to offset that, each of us would have to run six miles a day just to make it. Even a University of South Carolina study found that mothers of young children now burn 225 fewer calories a day than in 1965 because of all of our labor saving devices washing machines washers and dryers, dishwashers and all of that. If you do the math, those 225 fewer calories per day adds up to over 82,000 calories a year. Which if not offset would be a weight gain of about 23 pounds a year. Which is why nutrition scientists say sitting is the new smoking. We've got to find ways to move. The second thing that makes it difficult in our culture is the quantity and quality of food we've just gotten used to being surrounded by so much food.
Some researchers trying to fix this or examine this, was looking for something over the past 2000 years related to food that they compare a a, a scene related to food that painters would paint to remember that they could compare. What, what event do you think surrounded by food that painters have celebrated for the past 2000 years? You think of anything? The last supper. The last supper. So what they did is they measured Jesus' head in the head of his disciples and then compared it to the size of the plates on the table. And here's what they found. Between the years 1000 and 2000, the main core size pictured on the table in front of Jesus and his disciples increased by 69%. Plate size increased by 66%, the loaves of bread by 23%. Now in the Bible, the only thing mentioned is bread and wine, but painters would add things through the centuries.
Now they're putting in pork and lamb delicacies and desserts. Just from their own experience. They made the assumption that must be there. This was the last supper. This is what a supper involves. But I honestly think a bigger challenge for our culture today, even more than the quantity, is the quality of our food. Food engineers have studied how to make us gain weight because it sells more product and creates more profits. I mean this physiologically and neurologically, they have studied how to make us more dependent on their product so they can sell more product. And there's four things they're looking at in particular. They want the perfect combination of taste. We want it to taste good. Ease of eating, compare eating a carrot to a Kit Kat bar, right carrot, you gotta crunch a little bit. Kit Kat bar, it's really easy to eat how the food melts in your mouth.
They design that, they experiment with that, and then they're really after that early hit. It's a neurological impact. When you take the first bite, when it first goes through your lips, that boom in your brain. How many people have a favorite coffee chain where you look on the cup and it talks about that first sip feeling they study to make that happen. When I was growing up, there was a potato chip ad that said, bet you can't eat just one. They were showing their hand. We have made it where if you'll open up this bag and eat one, we've got you. You will not be able to stop until the bag is empty. So then you'll buy another bag and we make more profits. So if you feel like everything is kind of arrayed against you, it kind of is. One venture capitalist said, our goal is to get you hooked.
We're there not to nurture bodies. We're there to sell more product, which is why the head of HHS said recently, you know, the best thing we can do, eat real food, eat things that God created, not that man invented. Those little changes can have such a big difference. But all of this means that good health will require us to confront and resist our own natural desire for indulgence. The cultural challenges that we face, the physical challenges that we face if we wanna be serious about this. So what is our motivation? So we don't participate in national quitters day. It's viewing our body going back to the start as instruments of God. One of the most impactful moments for me reading the New Testament was when Jesus said to his disciples, pray for more workers. And why would Jesus ask his disciples to pray for something and then for more workers?
And what's behind it is Jesus is saying, there's not enough of us. There will never be enough of us. This message of the gospel, God reconciling the world to himself is so glorious and so wonderful. It's the most important message. But there are not enough people who will live for that. And so those of us who decide to do that, we're like those restaurant workers. How many of you worked in a restaurant? I have somebody calls in sick and was a boss saying, no breaks today. You gotta work twice as hard. We don't have enough staff. You gotta work really hard. And it's sort of Jesus saying that we've gotta be at our best. So that means we have to make our years count. Now, today, it's, it's hard to count as we don't really focus on this at Cherry Hills, but if you count people watching online, welcome.
Thank you for being with us. And the number of people here, any given Sunday, about 4,000 adults are gonna hear what we're saying. Let's say a fourth of them just blow this message off. But three fourths of you say, you know what? We're gonna make some small changes. And all the studies I've seen, small changes can have such a big impact. And let's say those 3000, those small changes give you two more years of vitality. Maybe two years of living longer. I don't know. But certainly I believe it's not stretching to say you'll be more engaged and more energetic and more involved for service. We can today with this reset, create 6,000 years of additional service for the kingdom of God. And I wanna say that to you because I've met so many of you. You inspire me how you share your faith, whether you're in business or athletics or the restaurant industry or music or whatnot. You're doing incredible things. And I just want you to be involved doing it more and longer and more energetically because of my respect that I have for you. But I wanna leave this with a happy message. It all comes back to Jesus. And here's a happy message. Because of Jesus, we win. This is not an easy battle to face, but because of Jesus, here's where it ends up. These are glorious words. Philippians three 20 through 21, and we eagerly
Await a savior,
The Lord
Jesus Christ, who by the power
That enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our
Lowly bodies. So they will be like his glorious body.
I'll never perfectly
Live this out, but
If I offer my body in service
To God, if you offer
Your body in service to God,
Here's where it ends. Glorious spiritual bodies just like Jesus's. So we don't try to
Just maintain this illusion of youth making our bodies an ornament. We offer them
As service
Instruments
For God.
And that's the message of
Reset brothers and sisters.
God has given us his word and a direct command.
We
Are not our own.
We were bought with the price. Therefore,
Let's honor God
With our bodies. Let's pray. Father,
Thank you for giving us these bodies. Thank you for giving us
Your word that
Gives us motivation and hope on how we treat
These bodies.
Lord, whether we need your strength to stop running into the barns that are destroying us,
Whether
We need your help to understand new patterns of dealing with the things that ail us.
Lord, I pray that you would create
More years of
Vitality that we could offer ourselves as
Your instruments
On behalf of your glory
For the kingdom of God.
We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
