02/26/2023 Midtown Church Online & Sacramento
Series – Hope, Health & Healing
Health is An Inside Job
Dr. Efrem Smith
Main Text: 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (NIV)
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
“A World That Judges Health and Value Based on the Outside”
1 Samuel 16:7
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Biblical Background: 1 Thessalonians- Paul and a Wholistic Understanding of the Self and of Health. The Whole Self- Spirit (Intimate Connection w/ God), Soul (Mind/Heart), and Body (Physical). Paul Also Focuses on Health of the Church.
- Biblical Health: Spiritually Healthy. The Holy Spirit being a source of health. Health from the inside out. What’s on the inside gives insight to our ability to live healthy lives. What’s in the heart, what’s in the mind is where the work towards health begins. Salvation means health and wholeness. God is more concerned about what is coming out of your heart than what is going into your body. This is because what is in your heart will impact what goes in your body. (Mark 7:15-23) Can be applied to health of the church.
Mark 7:15-23
Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” [16]
17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)
20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
Health From the Inside Out- God is triune (Father, Son, and Spirit). We are tripartite beings (Spirit, Soul, and Body).
1.) Developing a Healthy Spirit- Pneuma (John 14:15-17)
“If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
2.) Developing a Healthy Soul- Psyche (3 John 2-4)
Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. 3 It gave me great joy when some believers came and testified about your faithfulness to the truth, telling how you continue to walk in it. 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
3.) Developing a Healthy Body- Soma (1 Corinthians 6:12-20)
“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 19 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; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
Final Thought: God Cares About the Whole Person. (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT WEEK MIDTOWN!
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