It Starts with a Square

Sunday on Monday: Health Goals

BY Regan Hewitt

Main and Mulberry presents Sunday On Monday, a new series with Grace Hill Church’s Pastor Jason Stockdale. On each episode, Stockdale joins Anna Bell to share a brief word of faith, encouragement and hope. Each morning’s reflection reminds us of what’s really important. During this episode, Stockdale discusses the relationship between faith and physical health – listen here or read the interview below. Listen to all past episodes of Sunday On Monday here.

Sunday On Monday

May 17, 2021

Anna Bell: Good morning and thank you for joining us for this episode of Sunday on Monday. I’m your host, Anna Bell, and I’m really glad to be with Jason Stockdale, who is the lead pastor over at Grace Hill Church. Good morning, Jason. 

Jason Stockdale: Morning, how are you today?

AB: I’m good, Happy Monday and ready to kick this week off.

JS: Happy Monday to you as well.

AB: Tell us, what are we gonna be talking about today? We’re wrapping up a series. Aren’t we?

JS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, reports over the last few years of surfaced on just how much top to your athletes invest into the care of their bodies, you know their names, some of them may even be your favorite players, they spend hundreds of thousands, if not even millions of dollars a year caring for their bodies, cost that they invest… Things I invest to cover things like their home gym, a trainers, massage therapists, they have in-house shifts, trainers who are experts in biomechanics, they buy cryo chambers and hyperbaric chambers for their homes after their games that even connect their bodies to electro-stimulation machines that flush out the toxins in their body post-game to help them recover, there’s big contracts, there’s a lot on the line championships, there’s even an opportunity for most of these athletes to be called the greatest in their sport, and they really do treat their body like an investment, and so you may be saying, You know, hey, I’m not a top tier athlete, I’m lucky to go up and down the stairs without breathing hard sometimes… Well, today, for those of us who are Christ followers, I wanna give you an even better reason to care for your bodies then even the best athlete in any sport has…

JS: Right now, we’ve been talking about physical health, and our definition for that is the stewardship of the physical body that God has given us that in turn allows us to flourish for kingdom work, loving ourselves, our family, neighbors, community, and church… Well, for the length of time God has us on this earth, and in the passage of scripture, we’re gonna look at today, Paul communicates to very radical ideas. So let’s jump right into it. In 1 Corinthians 6, he writes this, don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. For you were bought at a price, so glorify God with your body. The first idea that Paul’s communicating here is this, is that your body is a temple. Paul is trying to give his audience a vision for something better, a new way to think, and he connects cultural language to this, he says, Your body is a temple, and you know in 2021, I think we miss the significance of this in our culture. His audience that he’s speaking to here is a Greek speaking audience, and the Greeks knew how to do something so well, and that was build temples, they had temples to every God imaginable, and they were massive and they were magnificent, you could walk into any city or village at that time and see a temple to fill in the blank God…

JS: And now Paul is saying, your body is a temple, a temple of the God that you worship. In this society, Paul is actually raising the value placed on physical bodies, he’s actually putting more worth on them, he’s saying that your body isn’t just for pleasure, it isn’t just to eat and drink what you want, your body isn’t just to discard… No, He’s saying, Your body is a temple. And that brings us to the second radical idea that Paul is giving his audience, and it is this, your body is not your own… To read irate, he writes this in verse 19 of chapter 6, he says, Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you whom you have from God. You are not your own, for you were bought at a price, so glorify God with your body. Once again, Paul is speaking so clearly to his audience in their culture, this Greek culture would have understood the idea of not being your own and being bought with the price, and I wanna be sensitive here, but I think we have to mention this so that we can understand exactly what Paul is talking about.

JS: What would have been in the minds of Paul’s audience when he writes that you were bought at a price, is the idea of prostitution, this audience in Corinth here had an ancient reputation for prostitution and promiscuity. And you say, I’m a little confused, I’m a good moral person. I don’t do this kind of thing. But here’s the reality is that we can give our bodies over to any number of things in this world, and God wants us to take these good things that he’s given us and use our bodies to seek the most important things in our life. So here’s our hope for us today in the suit, not only for the pursuit of our health goals, but for everything in life, Paul reminds us here that you are bought with the price, right here, he shows us the picture of what our Heavenly Father thinks about your life, think about the thing that you own that costs the most money, you were bought with a higher price than that, You have been bought with a price, and it’s not a monetary price, you have been bought with a price, with a life and death of Jesus Christ.

JS: And Paul… So what here is, this is a response to, this is so therefore glorify God with your body, because of our bodies are simple, and because our body is not our own, and because we’ve been bought with a price, Paul says, glorify God with your body. And this changes things. When we eat, we should glorify God, when we rest, we should glorify God, when we work out, we should glorify God, and a simple way to understand the idea of glorifies this is that we wanna shine a spotlight on it, one of my favorite scholars, authors, writers, pastors int writes is this glorify God in your body. In other words, discover how to live the truly human life, which brings glory to God and whose image you were made and whose own unique image his son Jesus died to rescue you from all that will stop you from being the person he longs for you to be. So today, remember that your body is not your own, that your life was bought with a price, and in everything you do seek to glorify God, that is our better… Why? For a better health goal in our life.

AB: Jason, thank you for reminding us just how much our bodies and our health are worth today. Will you close us in prayer?

JS: I would, I’d love to be able to do that. I wanna just repeat this blessing that we find in the Old Testament in Numbers chapter 6, may the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you may the Lord looked with favor on you and give you peace

AB: We hope you enjoyed today’s message. I’m Anna Bell and we’ll see you next Monday for Main and Mulberry: Sunday on Monday. Take care!

September/October 2021 Tour Collierville Magazine