Thanks for tuning in to the Sandals church podcast.
Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God and others.
We're glad you're here and we hope you enjoy this message.
Hey, welcome back to Sandals Church and happy New Year.
You guys are probably a little confused right now.
I am not.
Matt Brown.
My name is Eric.
I'm the executive past pastor of missions here at Sandals church.
I'm also a doctor of physical therapy.
I'm going to apologize straight up for my face.
I've been told that I look angry and intimidating, all right?
And I'm telling you I'm not angry, at least not today.
And I'm only going to intimidate you if you scare me.
So that's on you.
All right?
34 years ago, I was 20 years old.
I was in college studying health science, preparing for a career in physical therapy.
And I loved to exercise, love to work out.
The way my body looked mattered to me.
And I had these friends.
They played football, they were bodybuilders and they were doing anabolic steroids.
And they're like, dude, come try this.
You will see amazing gains.
And you know what?
As a young Christian trying to follow Jesus, I actually prayed about it.
And I asked God, I don't know exactly what I said, but something like, will you give me
wisdom?
Can I have permission to do this?
And you know what?
God answered me and he actually said, no, no, it's not for you.
And I think, like a lot of us, I just dismissed it.
I dismissed it and I talked myself into doing it because it's what I wanted.
It's what I wanted.
And so I did.
I started a cycle.
I put on 20 pounds really fast.
I looked jacked.
I was lifting heavy weights one day, so heavy I was leg pressing that I ruptured a disc in
my spine just a few short weeks after I started.
Man, I got treated.
I mostly recovered from that.
But now, fast forward 15 years because now I'm a physical therapist, okay?
I'm an expert in the spine.
That's my focus.
That's what I do.
And I've got this chronic back pain, this achy thing that I can't fix myself.
It won't go away.
Now I can solve it.
I'm getting along.
Life's not horrible, but it's this nagging, stupid problem that I shouldn't have.
Well, one night I go to bed and I coughed right before I went to bed, just.
And I had a sharp jab of pain in my back.
I didn't think much of it.
At the time, because I'd had that dozens of times before.
So I drifted off to sleep.
And that morning, at about 04:00 a.m.
I woke up.
My legs were on fire, and my leg was paralyzed.
And I'll never forget the moment I looked up to heaven and I said, God, what did you just
do to me?
Like it was his fault, right.
Well, I went on to have emergency surgery.
And I'll never forget I woke up in recovery to my neurosurgeon.
Now, here's what he said.
Huge 30 millimeter disc fragment.
We got it all, it looks like, but you're bone on bone.
And those words were poison.
They actually were poison to me.
I'll never forget them because that, to me, was a death sentence of a lifetime of chronic,
persistent pain.
He wanted to fuse my spine.
He had planted a belief in my mind that I couldn't change.
And I was stuck.
I got out of surgery.
It took me a year and a half to recover my leg strength, but I had this chronic,
unremitting back leg pain now, and I couldn't make it to go away no matter what I did.
Remember, I'm the spine expert.
I'm stuck with leg pain.
It won't go away.
I felt impotent and hopeless to change my circumstances.
And I felt worse because I knew it was my fault.
Like I earned this problem.
How many of you feel physically stuck right now?
Are you stuck in a problem?
When it comes to our body, common to most of us is that we have this shared experience of
powerlessness, frustration, pain, shame, failure, especially as we age.
It's not like it gets better.
If you checked out a physical graph of our physical health in the US, we live to be about
77 years of age.
And so we're born, and then somewhere in our mid 20s, we're going to reach our peak
potential for strength and performance.
And then there's this slow descending decline until we die at about 77 years.
Well, because your body's so cool, if the average adult will run, bike or swim three or
four times a week most of their life, they're going to kick that can down the road about
10%.
So they gain seven or eight years now, also.
Similarly, if you'll lift weights three or four times a week most of your adult life, also,
you add about 10% to your life, seven or eight years.
If you can find an adult who's done both of those things most of their adult life, you kick
it down the road by a factor of four.
You add about 30 years to your life.
Our body is adaptable.
It is resilient, it's strong.
And it's true at every single age, it's actually harder to kill a strong person.
Now, there's lots of reasons that's true.
But you know, our affinity, our tendency is towards comfort.
Let's look at psalm 139.
It says, thank you for making me so wonderfully complex.
Your workmanship is marvelous.
How well I know it.
God gave you your body and you treat it like it's someone else.
Like it's a temporary machine that can be repaired or replaced with spare parts.
Some of you treat it like it's a rental car and you drive it like you stole it.
Like it's someone else's.
Now, what if you had one house or one car or one phone?
How would you treat those things?
Would it be different?
Man, all of us get stuck.
In fact, one of the pastors here at this church, he had to have his heart defibrillated
this year.
He had to get hit with paddles to make it work right again.
And his doctor told him, he said, hey, if you'll start exercising, you can avoid this
problem.
So I won't tell you who it is.
But I asked Jeff.
I said, jeff, have you started exercising?
And you know what he told me?
I'm praying about it.
Are you kidding me?
Now, his behavior hadn't changed, in spite of how serious the problem actually was.
And I know why he hadn't changed.
It's the same reason you don't change.
You have to discover what you believe.
Look at proverbs 423.
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
That's the word of God.
Your heart determines what you are willing to do.
Your beliefs drive what you do.
Hey, you guys, thank you so much for joining our service today in the brand new year 2024.
Want to invite you to give to the work that God is doing in and through Sandals church.
You can do so by going to donate SC for now, let's get back into the message with Pastor
Eric Sally.
We're starting this series about becoming healthy.
And over the next couple of weeks, we're going to talk about physical, emotional and
spiritual health.
And I know how this makes some of you feel.
Maybe it's disappointment, maybe it's shame.
Maybe it's frustration because it reminds you of current or past failures.
But Jesus said it this way.
He said, the spirit's willing.
The flesh is weak.
This is a condition common to all of us because we don't know our own desires, we don't
know our own hearts.
If you have struggled with your physical self, your weight, your health, your fitness, your
body image, today is for you.
If you think you're the sexiest person on the planet and you're hyper focused on fitness
and you're more concerned with self image than health, today is probably also for you.
It's obvious that the world doesn't have great answers for this because we tend to equate
health with physical beauty or a specific body type.
If we're not beautiful, slim, muscular, then we're tempted to think we're not healthy.
If we're not healthy, then we've got these options like medicine and surgery for everything
from weight loss to cosmesis to diets and supplements.
Man, the world hasn't solved this problem.
We are embodied creatures in need of help, in need of the rescue of a savior from this
condition.
You don't have the answer.
The world doesn't have the answer.
So let's look at God's word and see what he does for a person who seems to have it all.
Power, influence, money, military expertise.
But this guy's stuck too, and he desperately needs healing.
Would you pray with me?
Let's ask our very good heavenly father to have this way with our hearts, this church, this
world, and this new year.
Dear Father, we come before you on the authority of your son, Jesus the Messiah.
We praise you today because you are the God who came to give us abundant life, to redeem us
and restore us from the consequences of our sin.
You are the only God who gives life to the dead and who calls things into being that we're
not.
Will you use my mouth to speak your words and speak life into this church, into everyone
who will hear this message?
I pray that the reality of your love would be experienced today, that you would silence the
liar, the thief, the murderer, so that your voice, the voice of your son Jesus, would be
clearly heard and lead us into health and wholeness.
We ask it in his name.
Amen.
All right, so we're going to look at two kings, chapter five, the first 14 verses.
So if you brought your Bible or you want to follow along in the app, you can do that.
It starts this way.
Now, Naaman was the commander of the army of the king of Aram.
He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded because through him the
Lord had given victory to Aram.
He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.
Now, leprosy is a bacterial condition, man.
And if we catch it early enough today, we can treat it.
It destroys, though, the nerves and the skin cells.
Naaman knew that this, for him, though, was a slow, chronic death sentence because there
was no cure known in his day.
Now remember, your body.
Your body is your finest tool.
It's actually the only thing that belongs to you and that you have full agency over.
You get one body and your entire earthly existence is experienced in that body.
They were given to us as gifts.
And Naaman, now Naaman's worried about his body now.
Bands of raiders from Aram, they had gone out and taken captive a young girl from Israel.
She served Naaman's wife.
She said to her mistress, if only my master would see the prophet who's in Samaria, he
would cure him of his leprosy.
How many of you have been given medical advice by a friend or family member?
And they're like, dude, you need to go see my doctor.
Everyone not suffering thinks they have the right solution, right?
So Naaman, though, listens.
He goes to his master and he told him what the girl from Israel had said.
He said, by all means, go.
The king of Aram replied, I will send a letter to the king of Israel.
And so Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, 6000 shekels of gold and ten
sets of clothing.
Do you know how much money this is?
Some of the sources I read suggest that it's like $750,000,000 in today's currency.
I don't know if that's true or not, but here's what I want you to see.
The condition is serious.
And Naaman, at some level he's willing to do what it takes to solve this problem.
The letter that he took to the king of Israel read this.
It said, with this letter, I'm sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of
his leprosy.
And as soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and he said, am I God?
Can I kill and bring back to life?
Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy?
See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.
The king of Israel knows leprosy is a death sentence.
He's got no idea God's at work.
He has no idea of God's power to transform and change a life.
He certainly doesn't think he's going to do it for an enemy.
And he's worried that this is going to go bad and it's going to fall on his shoulders.
When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes.
He sent him this message.
Hey, why have you torn your robes?
Have the man come to me and he will know that there's a prophet in Israel.
So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha's house.
Elisha sent a messenger to say, go wash yourself seven times in the Jordan and your flesh
will be restored and you will be cleansed.
Dude, Elisha's throwing some shade here.
He doesn't go out and meet the guy.
He sends his messenger.
He sends his messenger to deliver the prescription.
Have you missed a message?
Because it came through somebody you didn't respect.
But Naaman went away angry.
He said, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand, call on the name of the
Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.
Are not Abana and Farpur the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel?
Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?
And so he turned and went off in a rage.
Now, remember a few verses ago?
Naaman's ready to drop $750,000,000.
Looks like he's all in.
Right.
Well, now we discover that he's got a preconceived notion of how he should be healed, of
what should be done to cure his problem.
He doesn't like the prescription.
And isn't that just like us?
Look, Naaman has no skill, no gifting, no training as a healer.
But his heart, remember, we go back to the heart.
His heart has an expectation of the method.
The average patient that comes to see me, they've seen a handful of doctors, chiropractors,
acupuncturists, physical therapists, naturopaths.
And you know what they do?
Invariably?
They come in and they tell me what they need.
That's what they do.
So I usually listen to them because that's part of the process.
And then I gently remind them of the list they just gave me, of all the failed
interventions that they just had, helping them to see that if actually they want to get
better and recover, that a change of direction is necessary, a new prescription is
necessary.
They have to be willing to slide from the driver's seat into the learner's seat.
Naaman turns and leaves in a rage.
Man, we get so mad when we don't get what we want, even though what we want isn't the thing
we're actually asking for.
I don't think Naaman cared about the method.
I think he cared whether or not he was healed, right?
But some of you do.
Some of you will let your objection to the method stand in the way of your solution.
Naaman's going to drop $750,000,000, but he won't take a bath.
Think about that.
Some of you would rather be on costly medication and endure preventable surgeries than stop
drinking soda and go for a walk.
And I know that's harsh, man.
That's harsh.
And it's not always that simple.
But we're talking about life and death, and that's human behavior.
Verse 13.
Naming servants.
They went to him and they said, my father, if the prophet had told you to do something
great, would you not have done it?
How much more then when he tells you, wash and be cleansed.
So he went down, dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him.
And his flesh was restored and became clean, like that of a young boy.
Naaman's healed.
This is a miracle.
And you need to notice some subtle and important points.
Naaman is hoping for a magnanimous, ostentatious solution because his mind is trying to
reconcile the seriousness of his condition with a solution that seems fitting.
But notice, it's Naaman's community.
It's his people who advocate for him that help him see what he had missed.
You need that kind of community, too.
You need people that are going to advocate for your best interests even when you're acting
foolishly so you can see what you're otherwise going to miss.
Second notice, remember, he doesn't have proper training, education or gifting to actually
know what he needs.
Right.
And scripture reminds us, knowledge makes us arrogant, but love builds us up.
Like Naaman, we're really good in this information age at googling our symptoms, self
diagnosing, self prescribing, and then hanging on to our own personal expertise.
Even though we're stuck suffering, unchanged, unimproved.
How many of you have googled your symptoms, turned into Webmd to try and solve a medical
problem that didn't work out?
Yeah.
Amen.
Human nature.
I can hear my patients telling me what's wrong with them, what they need.
How about PRP?
How about cortisone disc replacement?
Stem cells, trigger point injections?
Look, I don't blame them.
I mean, they've been shown x rays, mris, CTS, given explanations.
They've read some stuff on the Internet.
They have a little knowledge.
That's true.
But Naaman gets healed.
And don't miss why he gets healed because it's the subtle stuff that you're missing that's
killing you.
Community and obedience.
All right, he's healed because he obediently follows the simple prescription that's given
by God's prophet.
I left off in my own story suffering with persistent miserable leg and low back pain.
We were living in East Africa at that point.
I'd opened a physical therapy clinic and, man, we were sharing the gospel with Muslims.
People were coming to faith, people were getting healed physically.
And I was so frustrated with the Lord because I was suffering.
These people were getting better.
I was suffering.
But I knew my problem was my fault, so I didn't blame him.
I knew I'd earned this condition.
But thankfully, my wife, my family, others in my community, they prayed for me.
They prayed for me through this problem.
And this may sound new to you, but in the same way Naaman was challenged in his thinking, I
didn't believe I'd be healed.
I thought, man, if God was going to heal me, he could have done that ten years ago.
And you also might be thinking right now, I don't know that I can change or that God wants
to heal me.
It didn't make any sense to me.
It might not make any sense to you.
That's okay.
I've got a great wife, Nancy.
She challenged me with the story of Abraham.
Abraham and Sarah.
They are promised a son, son Isaac.
And it takes God a long time to deliver on that promise.
25 years.
But it's Abraham's faith that pleased God and produced the promise to begin with.
Right, Hebrews eleven six.
And without faith, it is impossible to please him.
For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those
who would seek him.
That challenged me that I didn't know what to do with it.
I was frustrated.
I wanted to be healed.
I wanted to please God.
But I didn't know what to do.
And so much time had passed.
It had been a long time.
As a healthcare provider, I have to take continuing education courses.
And so I took a course in Amsterdam on dry needling.
It's where we take this long single monofilament needle and insert it in the muscles in
your body.
And so the course was ten days long.
Not only did I have to needle everybody, but I got needled in every muscle in my body.
Places where you might not think a needle should go.
It was a very intense experience.
But after the course, a few days, I woke up pain free for the first time in a decade.
Blown away, I had no idea what to make of it.
I was dumbfounded, but the experience made me realize that what I'd believed about my pain
was wrong, and something new was at work, rooting out that false idea that that physician
had planted 15 years prior.
And so I began a program that forced me to look at a couple of things, my beliefs and my
emotions.
And six weeks later, I started running that same year.
Yeah.
Amen.
I started running.
That same year, I started skiing again.
I hadn't done those things in 25 years.
God healed me.
He used a simple change in my belief and my awareness of the effect of my emotions on my
body to do it.
Now, I don't live in utopia.
I'm not pain free all the time, everywhere, but he delivered me from that condition.
And it does make sense, because Jesus came to give us abundant life.
And his desire for you is not that you should live in pain or frustration or shame or
stuck, but that you should learn to live well and maintain the body that he's given you.
Look at one.
Corinthians 619 and 20.
It says this.
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from
God?
You are not your own.
You were bought at a price.
He has made your body to be his residence, the place where he lives.
He wants you to maintain it, care for it, feed and build up your body for your own personal
benefit and for the benefit of others.
Your body is the medium by which other people are going to experience God, because you're
the temple of the Holy Spirit.
So if you want to change your body, if you want to steward well the body that God has given
you, if you want 2024 to look different, if you're a Christian, this is the body that was
redeemed and purchased.
Write this down.
I must discover what I actually believe is possible.
Proverbs 20, verse five says this.
The purposes of a person's heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.
Discovering what you actually believe takes time and effort and wisdom and community.
But it's possible.
Write this down.
Also, in order for me to change, I must be willing to listen to the right people.
Not everyone's concerned for your best interest, but some are, and some people know exactly
what to do.
I had this patient, Jerry, and Jerry was not a believer, but his wife was.
She'd been praying for him for, like, 20 years, and he wasn't interested necessarily in
spiritual things, but he came to see me because his body was demanding attention.
He'd had a total knee replacement that year, and it was not going well.
He's in severe pain.
His leg looks like a sausage.
His knee was frozen stiff.
He was also an alcoholic and had been sober for a lot of years.
But now his doctors were asking him to take opioid medication for pain control.
So coming to me was like a last ditch effort for him.
Now, look, he, too, hadn't taken care of his body.
He hadn't exercised since high school.
He wasn't in great shape.
So I evaluated Jerry, and then I was discouraged, because I'm like, I don't know if I can
help you.
He was a mess.
So before we started treatment, as I often do, I got his permission.
I prayed over him.
And over the following months, as we worked together, he made progress.
And then I got the opportunity to share the gospel with him.
And one day, he gave his life to Jesus.
Yeah, couple of miracles in here because his wife is blown away.
She'd prayed for this guy for 20 years, man, and God answered that prayer.
Don't miss this.
It was Jerry's broken body screaming at him that drove him to Jesus and ultimately saved
his life.
And as part of the healing process, he also had to begin to develop healthy rhythms and
disciplines, read scripture, learn to pray, go to Church, and, yes, to exercise every day.
A year later, you would not have recognized this guy.
He looked like a new man.
He was a new man.
Now, if you want to change like Jerry, after you discover what you believe, you start
listening to the right people.
You have to train your body.
Exercise is the best medicine that we have.
It was designed by God to be the most effective way to heal your body.
Write this down.
As a follower of Jesus, I must train my body to do what it should.
One corinthians 927.
Paul writes this, I discipline my body like an athlete.
Paul was not an athlete.
Training it to do what it should.
Why did he do that?
Because his body needs to do what he needed it to do, to do the work God called him to.
Regardless of healthy or unhealthy, the body will adapt 100% of the time to the loads that
we put on it.
And it's true at every age.
Proverbs 30 117.
She sets about her work vigorously.
Her arms are strong for the task.
Hard work requires strength.
The body becomes stronger when we give it loads to lift.
One Timothy four eight.
For physical training is some value.
Why is it of some value?
It's because our bodies need to move in order to adapt.
Now, the possibilities for exercise, man, they are as varied as you guys are.
You can run, bike, swim, dance, garden, ski, hike, surf, play tennis, pickleball,
racquetball, golf, zumba, Tai Chi, functional exercise, crossfit, and cross training.
And that's the beginning.
That doesn't mention all of the exercise equipment that's out there and the plethora of
ways to use it.
Exercise is no doubt hard work, but if it's not fun, you're probably not doing it right.
Can I make two suggestions for you today?
Number one, explore different activities until you find something you love.
And once you find something you love, then learn how to train to enhance your performance.
Because once you love something, then training becomes something that you want to do, not
something you have to do.
Suggestion two, do it with friends and family.
I invited Jeff Y to join our gym specifically because I knew our community would keep him
coming back until he learned to love it.
Good community makes habitual exercise possible over the long haul.
Now, after you move your body, it's got to recover, all right?
So you need two elements of recovery.
Fuel.
Your body has to be fueled properly.
Write this down.
I must care for my body by choosing to eat wisely.
Man.
The Bible is replete with scripture about food.
It's designed by God to fuel our bodies and provide some pleasure.
The promised land is described as the land of milk and honey.
But it's the disordered use of food for pleasure and comfort that gives us trouble.
How many of you have tried a new, complicated diet that didn't work right?
None of them actually work as a lifestyle.
All of them produce some kind of immediate effect, but they all have limited application
and effectiveness.
Food should be consumed mostly to meet your metabolic and your energy requirements.
And then food in moderation, in its most original form, provides exactly what your body
needs for fuel.
The more processed, synthetic, modified the food is, the more problematic it is causing
allergies, obesity, and disease.
What it matters when it comes to food are three things, your motivation for eating, the
habits that you have, and the source of the food.
It takes time and effort to discover your motivations.
Building new habits requires discipline.
But then you also need to look at where your food is coming from.
I'm going to give you four simple recommendations and save you 4 hours of a Huberman
podcast here.
Right?
Number one, eliminate added sugars.
It's poison.
It's killing you.
Number two, eat high fiber foods because they're going to suck the toxins out of your body.
Number three, include omega three fatty acids found in fish and seeds.
Your brain and nervous system need them.
And then here's the fourth, don't drink your calories.
Sweeteners of every kind are toxic.
All right?
Now, after you have moved your body, fueled your body, it's got to rest.
All right, write this down.
I must prioritize daily and weekly rest.
Psalm 127 two says this in vain.
You rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat, for he grants sleep to those he
loves.
When we sleep, our brain changes its function.
It actually becomes like a kidney pulling waste out of the system.
When we sleep, toxins are removed at almost twice the speed as when we're awake.
And look, everything from blood vessels to tendons to muscles to ligaments, even your
immune system uses sleep as a time for tissue repair.
If you don't get enough refreshing sleep, those processes get disturbed.
And guess what?
You suffer.
Second aspect.
To rest.
Rest from work.
The Bible calls this a sabbath.
Hebrews four one.
Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none
of you be found to have fallen short of it.
Man, your body needs adequate rest from both work and exercise, and God has given you a
simple prescription to accomplish this.
Now, the purpose of today's message, it's not to teach you how to do these things.
There's a lot of good resources to do that.
The purpose of today is to teach you that your body is created in the image of God, to be
his dwelling place, to serve his purposes.
You are magnificent.
Your body is one of your greatest responsibilities.
You have to learn to take care of it.
And I want you to know that health and healing, they're possible.
It's not too late at any age, because our mighty God loves you.
He calls the dead to live.
He's a good God.
He wants you to be whole.
When we were in East Africa, my parents came to visit.
We took them to a safari park on the coast.
The government had just built this new beach camp so you could now camp on the beach and
then go for game drives.
So I was the expert in Swahili and navigation.
I called to confirm the reservation, and they told me.
They said the rains have been horrible this year.
So they recommended we take a different route from the one I was planning, which meant a
six hour drive instead of a two hour drive.
And I know all the dads in here are like, dude, I'm taking the two hour road.
That's why we buy big, fat mud tires and jack our trucks up.
So I asked a ton of questions, and then I tell her about my fantastic land cruiser and my
incredible off roading experience.
I mean, I'd been off roading in sub saharan maasai land, for crying out loud.
Okay.
After several minutes, the woman that I was speaking with, though, she like, oh, okay.
Well, the roads, they're flooded and muddy.
But you got a great car and you're an amazing driver, so you'll probably make it.
So we load up our family, luggage stacked on the roof rack, single axle trailer hitched to
the car.
We drive to the park.
And once you get to the gate, you got 100 get to the camp.
When we get inside, the roads are so muddy and flooded, you can't even find the road in
some places.
Well, you guessed it, 70.
Buried the truck in the mud.
Now I have my aged parents, I have my young children, I have my very happy wife with us.
Right?
We are in the middle of a safari park.
It's not the San Diego Zoo.
This is Jurassic park.
Okay.
There are elephants and giraffes and zebra grazing where we're stuck.
You know they're prey animals, right?
All right.
We haven't seen another human since the gate 70 km ago.
Now, you'd think I'd be prepared, right?
Because I'm a great offroader.
I would have a winch or a shovel or a hijack.
No, I don't have any of that.
So everyone gets out, we unhitch the trailer.
Five of us manage to get it unstuck from the mud and on dry land.
And then for the next 6 hours, I'm digging the truck out, praying that we don't get eaten
in the process.
Because I put my family on a dinner plate for the lions here.
I missed Naaman's sermon back there.
Trying to get my attention, recommending a different route.
Well, we stopped, we prayed, and we asked God for some miraculous help.
And then, like offering the lions a new tasty snack, I sent my aged mother, my wife and my
youngest child to go walk down the road to the nearest fork to see if they could find some
help.
Man.
And let me tell you what, I'm worried my stupid decision to take the short route is going
to get us killed.
I'm out of ideas.
I don't have any more strength left to keep digging.
And I don't know how much time passes.
But the women come back with a little guy on a peaky peaky, which is a motorcycle.
I feel like I'm in a scene from dumb and dumber.
This dude shows up, pulls out a pongo, which is a machete, chops down some trees, we shove
it under the tires and we drive out of the hole.
Dude, it's an absolute miracle.
So I paid the guy a lot of money, gave him a bunch of gratitude, and then I drive like a
mud caked demon out of hell.
The last 3 get to the camp and I got across two rivers that I didn't know were there.
They're rivers.
Okay, we make it.
We arrive.
Everyone's muddy.
We wash up in the ocean, we try to make dinner.
Food's ruined, everyone's shaken.
Especially me.
Because I'm the fool that put us there, right?
And then it starts to rain, so no one sleeps.
And in the morning we decide to leave.
As we're leaving the camp, there's a fork in the road.
To the right, the way we came in.
To the left.
This is the unknown route, but the route the expert had told me to take.
To the right, the same stupid decision.
To the left.
A new, unknown route.
We went left.
We were home in 6 hours.
No rivers, no mud, no lions.
Just a peaceful, normal, wet, boring ride home.
And now an actually happy wife.
It's a miracle we made it.
It really is.
And it's a miracle some of you are still alive.
It's a miracle that Jeff Wyatt is alive.
The next time you go down that road, you might not make it.
And you have people in your life like Naaman.
Sermon.
They're trying to get your attention right now.
Today you get to make a choice.
Are you going to choose to keep driving down that same old road that you know?
Or choose to take a new direction and choose to trust God, the God who calls the dead to
living?
What are you going to choose today?
I pray that, like Naaman, you would be moved to make a simple but unintuitive change and
set out on a new path with your life so that you might experience what God intends for you.
There's deep hope for transformation because Jesus is the path of life.
And the church.
The church is your companion and your community for the journey.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, you've called each one of us to join you in the process of making this
world new and a better place.
And it starts with how we live and what we do with your temple.
These amazing bodies you've given to each of us.
Would you move in the heart of each one of us?
We want to trust you and run hard after your son, Jesus.
But we need your help to do it.
And we need to begin by trusting you with our bodies.
We ask this in Jesus name.
Amen.