8-25-24 Sun morn Pastor Sam Mitchell Trophies of Grace “TROPHY OF OUR BODY”

e e e e e e e e e e e e e and that see the good thing about these trophies I'm talking about not restricted to just a just a few they're available for every one of us that live for the Lord and love the Lord and so I'm looking forward this morning to yet another trophy to brag on him for thank you Lord this morning I pray you'd be high and lifted up Lord how I thank you today for being the greatest friend I've ever had not to mention giving yourself for me an old sinner worth nothing to nobody but meaning all to you I praise you today and I love you and I thank you in advance for whatever you do we know it'll be right in Jesus name help us all amen I've been uh preaching about as I said these trophies and last week we studied about bearing so to speak and I said then we didn't have much persecutions in our body from from the fact of uh uh being a Christian but still bearing some things that we have to endure for the Lord and our stand for the Lord but in Psalms 139:14 and you don't have to turn if you want to just um listen these words have been a blessing for me for many years and I'm so thankful for what they I really did not understand them for many years to be honest with you I had no idea and had some doctors and scientists read this many years ago DNA would have been probably discovered sooner but nevertheless the psalmist said I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made marvelous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right well my substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth Thine Eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect and in thy book all my members were written Hallelujah he don't have no surprises which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them how precious also are thy thoughts unto me oh God how great is the sum of them if I should count them they are more in number than the sand when I'm awake I'm still with thee David said if you could get these Democrats and a lot of other people to see this verse they would not only keep that reversal of that Row versus way but they had amend it again and say we're going to quit killing these babies because they are product of the Lord if there's one scripture in the Bible that or spot in the Bible that def finds God's will it's right here where God said that it was fashioned when yet there wasn't one he said and yet there was none of them God has is the one that did that God is the one that made you look like what you look like that's why I've always said it's not I don't think it's God's will for us to change the way God made us look if there's something unhealthy obviously but just to change yourself and all to where that God made you you have to wonder is that really the will of God if God made us with some way something you can't help something you can't change can't fix that was the hand of God that did that or at least allowed that according of these verses right here so that means that God has something to do with your life differently from those that are quote normal without whatever you have but scripture says here in these verses that we are made and known of God produced by God fashioned by God way before we ever get here and since God is fasting us before we get here it didn't have to happen after Man was created or the world as a matter of fact it was in God's creation Plan before the foundation of the world people don't like that word sovereign I'm going to tell you you're in trouble if he's not sovereign but the fact that he is Sovereign defines why there is hope because God has made a way and is in control and so when we understand this I want to speak to you this morning about a different kind of trophy that you might not think is a trophy but when I look at you this morning and you look at me this morning you're seeing and I'm seeing a trophy of God when I see your body this body was not something just happened to be this way but we have a body today that is a highly highly complicated body they don't they know how to do all kind of things now but they cannot understand the brain and the brain is only using just a small part of it to to work that we know of it may be something else going on but we don't know nothing about it because we don't understand that if you study any kind of uh uh biology or anything you'll see that there's things going on with us that you cannot understand even and I don't really understand be honest with how they found out about it but they did through various things and and to think all of that was going on before they found out about they didn't create it they just found out what God was doing it's kind of like when God Saves you you know and you find out that you're saved but it didn't start with you and God was doing that before you found out about it and God was doing births before we found out about it and so when we look at this we understand at least I think there's no better place to look for a few minutes at least about our body because the scripture is very clear here that our body is where that God made us and it's defined clearly here as far as I'm concerned I preached out of here one time on spiritual DNA I believe that's also found here but that's yet another subject I want to talk about this morning our physical body the body that God gave us the reason my ear is big as it is or little as it is my nose is white as it is or narrow as it is my eyes the color they are how much I squint when I looking at you when the sun's not even out cu that's me the reason that you open your eyes real wide is cuz that's you cuz God made us that way and how he did that and the intricacies that go into creating that is found all in what God put together in the genes that we have and just to think we're finding out about it but God did that way before we found out about it not to mention the fact that we didn't have nothing to do with it I want to say this morning that when we look at this and look at our bodies we understand that it's more than something just for us to look at some people think that their body is made just to be uh put out there for people to view it's a matter of fact that's that not even what it's there for your body is given you for the purpose of serving the lord for the purpose of living for the Lord and other things as well but we understand that we do things that and we hear that what this scripture saying that if God went through not if since God went through all those little de little tiny details that we don't even know all about or how he did it God must for sure have something in mind for each one of us as an individual you can take Twins and put them together and they may look a lot alike but they're not identical they identical everyone is different and when we it's a good day in your life when you realize that but you can't improve on what God's done I mean man can't do and man says well you know what happened one day there was a big old bumping in up with some elements well where did the elements come from in the first place even if that's true but the elements got together and they didn't like each other a boom and out of the explosion that we know teares up everything I've never exploded anything that didn't tear it up but somehow another they're saying that the explosion put something back together that wasn't even there I mean you want to get something even crazier it tore up something that wasn't there put it back together in a better shape and still in this uh evolutionary stages folks I'm going to tell you you don't have to have a college degree to know that that don't make sense I mean oldfashioned Georgia redneck training will tell you that that's crazy God was the one that created this and the Bible said that he's the one that created it and made it like it is by the way if he made it that way why would you think that you could do any better if God The Sovereign Lord that can say let there be light and the sun lit up why do you think that you can do any better than him verse number 14 says when you get through and step back and look at it you just have to step back and say marvelous are thy Works marvelous are thy works not our works you see man wants to put it on us and say what we did but God said I did that I did it that way and he said that because that it's an amazing thing it's breathtaking when you look at it verse 14 says this too and I like this part he said that my soul knows right well it's a good day in your life when you're Soul not your head but your soul knows what God did to you right well it's a good day when you realize the The Wonder of what he did how he did it but it's a better day when you realize that he did it to you and the only way that you can know that is when the light of the Glorious gospel shines into your heart and lights up that that you could not see because of the darkness and let you understand verse number 15 the Bible said that when I was invisible for everyone no one was around he could still see me and know me now we know that somebody a woman comes along and she says I took a test kit and found out that I'm pregnant way before the test kit could have proved it it had already happened excuse me and when it happened it wasn't out here for everybody to look at it was done in secret it goes on on the inside of that woman's body it goes on in her body to conceal that and to hide that that that's going on for several reasons I believe for protection and a lot of things but because if it wasn't if it was where you could sit everybody be wanting to watch it everybody want to say that don't need to do it that way or something like that but God said in a nutshell let me put it this way I got this God said you don't need to do nothing but enjoy what I'm doing it he said but I want you to know when I get inside of you and I'm making somebody new you're going to know it the woman knows it and when that's going on on the inside you can't see it but it does not mean nothing's going on on the inside and when you think about how wonderful a baby is right here this morning that came forth of a woman and you look at it and say how could this come from this and yet it did without your help without your permission and I want to say to you this morning that's what God said that he did I saw I watch it he's got a every baby has a fulltime nurse watching over it and that's God of Glory verse 16 the Bible says that he's the one that engineered it and made it happen like it did it says that that in that verse number 16 that it was him that laid out the what we would call the blueprints and the DNA to know what to do have any of you ever studied much on DNA anybody y'all are rednecks aren't you either that you embarrassed or you don't want to folks when you study DNA and you get through you step back and say well I don't really know what I studied it's kind of like them got that HC heliscope whatever that new one up there that telescope and it's way up there taking pictures way we in they say light years by billions of years and taking pictures and they look at it they see something but they don't know what they say they think they do but even if they did see something if they according to their own words are looking something that's 12 billion years old it's yeah it's something that was and ain't now probably or could be but they don't know when you start looking into the things of God it makes you step back and say I don't know I don't understand because it's beyond comprehension and God said that about this when he was talking about that he said it was fashioned well what does fashion mean it means somebody took something and dressed it up and did it a certain way so that you could say that it had a certain fashion or work or intention for it according to the fashion thereof but yet no one's in there doing that no one's able to do that and yet God said it was fashioned what if no one else is doing it guess who did it the Lord did it and it was him that took the DNA you see DNA has always been here from the beginning but look how long it took us to stumble into and I say stumble by the guidance of God maybe as well but into discovering how in the world could they even discover such a thing the DNA process and yet there it is it's in existence and God is behind that you say no that thing blowed up years ago and that's that how it came out perfect perfect not only did it come back together what wasn't there that blowed up came back together it didn't just come back together and uh peace meal but it came back together perfect DNA that just keeps reproducing and selecting each one of us and making us what we are folks I'm telling you you get to thinking about that and you step back and say I'm fearfully and wonderfully made and what you're looking at what I'm looking at is Not an Accident it is God's plan for you and for me verse number 17 there says that we're not an afterthought to God his thoughts of us are great his attention to us in detail goes down into the DNA and even yet Beyond so when David was saying this he didn't have no degree from Harvard or wherever he didn't know nothing about DNA he didn't know nothing about even antibiotics probably aspirin and none of that kind of stuff it didn't exist then they didn't know nothing about that how could David come up with that kind of a Insight well the only way he could have come up with it was because of the inspiration of the one that did it that whispered in his ear and said this is what took place so no wonder David was so uh happy and wonder being wonderfully made and it'll be a good day in your life when you realize that what God made you you ought to be thankful for and not be complaining about it all time you somebody say all time well I hate my hair if I had any I don't hate mine what two or three's left but what I'm saying is we're bad about doing that okay so you say well Brother Sam what does all that mean I'm so glad you asked that I want you to turn now in 2 Corinthians chapter number four with me and I want you to turn and read these verses with me 2 Corinthians chapter 4 God made our bodies and I say it's a trophy but while you turnning I'm going read you another verse in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 9 the scripture says what know ye not that your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you which you have of God and you're not your own for you are bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are Gods improve on what God's done that we pamper and try to keep it going all the time and complain about folks we're wonderfully made if we wouldn't wonderfully made we'd already be gone we'd be dead if we ever got here in the first place but God said I want you to know as a Christian I didn't just make that body for you to abuse excuse me to to Rite all over it with tattoos and stick pens and and the pagans worship and all that kind of stuff he said that's all that's not even your body it don't even belong to you a Christian does not own that body according to that verse your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost and you are not your own I don't own this I'm using this you listening to me I'm using this body you're using this body I got that old 96 Ford truck I bought you out there still runs good it it's going to outdo me I believe but I'm using that truck my name's on it I didn't make that truck I actually bought this truck but this body I didn't buy but I'm just using this body cuz you do understand that this body is not all of you we have a body soul and a spirit this body is the vessel that carries all three around by the way this body is also the one since it carries around the soul and the spirit is where the highest honor listen to me carefully the highest honor could give to your body is to save you and to place the Holy Ghost of God which is God inside of you so God is saying you may not like your body but I like your body and I love your body enough to take up my boat inside of your body God says therefore don't abuse your body he said take care of your body and keep it holy cuz it don't belong to to you it's the Temple of the Holy Ghost and the Bible says we glorify God in this body which is his how am I going to glorify God in this body so if this body is what glorifies God and this body is where that God thinks enough of it to put himself into then we need to put a higher price tag and value on this body to take care of it not to abuse it in a lot of ways you with me stay with me cuz we're just getting to the good part God made this body I hope you're feeling better about yourself right now if you're born again now in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 in verse number 16 for which cause we faint not for though our outward man perish that's this old body this old body is perishing now you'd be a fool to say that I don't understand that that I I don't see that in my own life even if you're a younger person you can see your body is failing in some form or another but notice the contrast this body's got a passenger yet the inward man is renewed day by day this old body is perishing nobody'll argue with that please don't don't show your ignorance this old body is perishing Rambo if he was up here his body is perishing everybody perishes in this body but the scripture says there's something going on on the inside that is the exact opposite of what's going on on the outside so when I look at that and I see and I say by the grace of God not complaining just stating fact man does this hurt today brother Bill man do I feel bad today but that's not the end man that's this old man that's the one we look at and the one we see that's the one that that we complain to each other about go to the doctor to help fix it cuz we're supposed to why cuz we're glorifying God in this body why because it is the the taxi cab of carrying around the Holy Ghost host and our Soul and Spirit but on the inside not only has that man on the inside nothing got worse today he's never been sick since the day said I was born again did you hear what I just said John says it well when he says he does not commit sin cuz he can't and this scripture says he's renewed every day or restored every day so that he's the same every single day so while this man gets up and says I can't hardly get up that man on the inside says hallelujah I'm glad to feel good today and he's over there stretching his arms and ready to go but just don't have nobody to carry him around like I used to anymore are you listening this is real life stuff here this is what we experience here but it's good to understand when we experience and how we experience but there's no doubt about it this old man on the outside is losing the battle we have X amount of time that God has allowed us on this Earth and we have that and we treat that in order to keep this body going cuz we don't know we can't see the inward man or the spirit of God because that's inside of us right so we can only relate to this outward man and we respond to that outward man but I want you to get this and get it good no matter what happens that inward man is the same yesterday today and forever more will be he is not what you are on the outside and when you look at it like that you understand that though we have a trophy in this body that people do see and we brag on our trophy on the outside perhaps on our body because of what we're able to do for the Lord how much more can we brag on that trophy on the inside that no one sees but us but we see him we see him because we know ourselves and we know there's something going on inside of us that is not sick won't be sick but something's happening to him he's not just well you know be one thing to say well got up feel the same got up feel the same got up but that's not what the scripture said let's read it again the inward man is renewed day by day that means to restore that means to bring back to every day I guess is what I'm saying it is this way it's not today living on yesterday's Grace it's today living on today's grace and God said I got a fresh dose of Grace for you every single day so that there's never a time when I was the same although I was and still am the same it's not the same because I'm restoring restoring restoring restoring so that whatever you see you'll always see the same thing but God's keeping it going on the inside of us glory to God folks and he does that to every one of us that are saved that's why you can't get lost that's why you can't fall that's why you can't stay down if you do Paul you got to get up cuz that man on the inside said get up from here but hang on let's go a little bit further I was thinking about this and when I got to looking at this this thought came to mind maybe it might make it simpler maybe it won't how many of you have ever seen a butterfly some of you not sure you have you just how many of you ever seen a butterfly fly fly he didn't always look like that you know that right he didn't always look that beautiful at all sometimes I want to light and I watch him there he just sit there and his wings going slow and just like I don't know just not moving except his Wings slowly moving and the color and the design and the beauty of that butterfly just you can't you can't color it it just it's beyond comprehension because God created that thing God you can you couldn't improve on the design of every one of them little curves one of them little colors but folks I want to remind you that that butterfly was not always a butterfly but there was was a time when that butterfly was an egg that was deposited on somewhere so that it could become a butterfly someday and that egg when that egg uh hatched out it hatched out into a worm I wonder if that's significant to tyeing all this together how that the Lord called us a worm anyway the worm dieth not you know point being is that egg becomes a caterpillar and I don't know about you but caterpillars are amazing to look at but there ain't nothing pretty about them they're they're icky to me I don't want them on me and they got so many legs and they just they don't do nothing but one thing they try their best to eat everything they can and do whatever they can as long as their time as a caterpillar exists and then when that caterpillar gets to a certain SP spot that only nature knows to where he's eating his last bite he won't eat no more he starts spinning up a little cocoon if you will in the sense of a shell and all of a sudden he's covered up into a closed little bag if you will called a pupa I believe is the name of it and when he stays in that that thing used to be an egg and then it was a worm and now it's invisible in that little bag and all of a sudden if you watched it in time long enough as nature goes all of a sudden that little bag will start to crack open and all of a sudden it'll bust open a little bit further and we remember that a worm went in there but all of a sudden it's not a worm it sticks his head out but it's a beautiful Wing perhaps of the head of a beautiful butterfly and it's not long before that little bag bust open and that butterfly comes out of there and he is beautiful as as you could imagine Beyond Comprehension so it went from an egg to a worm to a pupil in a bag to the most beautiful thing you'd ever see and I thought to myself Lord that's what verse 16 is saying to us every day it's called metamorphosis y'all remember that in school metamorphosis that means when something is changed from what it is to become something that it wouldn't you're looking at the results today and I'm looking at the results today of an egg that one day was placed into your heart by God and God saved you and God put something inside of you to make you do what he wants done and we're just like a worm now crawling around and we are doing the work of our nature that is to to eat all we can of this word and get closer to God as we can do spread the gospel as much as we can but one day we're going to slip into unless the Rapture takes place we're going to slip into the little pupil known as a grave to us and we're going to slip into that grave and we're going to somebody look over in that casket and that old empty body is going to be laying there it's no longer needed it's like a taxi cab but no one wants to ride in anymore it's no longer any good to us or anyone else so we go bury it hide it somewhere in the grave and it's in the grave and yet that's not the end of it if it's a Christian well either way but specifically in this verses here if a Christian but one day when the Lord at the call of the last Trump when God calls his children out they're not going to go into that grave like I come out of that grave like they went into that grave thank God thank God we're not going in sick and bothered and ugly and all wrinkled up and everything else like we did when we went into it but glory to God we're coming out of that graay beautiful and enhanced to a beauty that only God could have performed and nothing would ever know by the way by the way inside that Pupa is everything that that butterfly needs to become a butterfly you don't have to put nothing into it you don't have to help it out it's going on on the inside and when you put a Christian in the grave you don't have to put a Sprinkle stuff on him to make him smell good or something else that's just for the body but on the inside there's something going on uh that's preserved inside that God said I'm going to bring something out of that one day and we're going to see something that you didn't put in there and a glorified body is what the Bible said we're going to have uh and I want to say thanks be unto God uh I'm not what I'm finished going to be uh I'm glad I'm not what I used to be but I'm still in the process but one day I'm going to be beautiful when God pulls me out and makes me my own that he made me and folks I want to say to you this morning God did a metamorphosis on us and will and is doing we may put them down we may put them down in the so-called Pupa wrap them up but one day they're coming out and one day they're coming out different from when they went in I'll be honest with you I don't want to see him like it Go in do you that wouldn't be not a that wouldn't be a glorious day to see him like a go in but Paul said sorrow not as those that have no hope for if we believe if we believe he said the day is coming when the dead in Christ are going to rise first and they're going to be different from when they went in they're going to look different and by the grace of God this afternoon God has given us a trophy in this body and a trophy inside this body as a reminder every day something's going on on the inside something's changing on the inside and it reminds me every time I think of it of what he did for me and it's another trophy of Grace let's stand together I needed more time I took more than I usually do but I couldn't get to all this without taking more time but I needed another hour and a half or so probably to really get into it like I would have had liked to but in that being said you get the picture we're his workmanship created under to good works his workmanship you say well I don't like you well you're not looking at the finished product I made some biscuits this morning I make them usually every Sunday morning and I thought that D and mixing it all up I thought sister louette Yu who wants that I don't put it in the pan and it goopy looking I don't want that you know what you know what happens I put them in that oven and the heat hits them you get the smelling them and that same biscuit that don't look good it went through a change and for us to get to the place of beauty we' got to go through a change brother Jim is talking about death before service that death we're talking you were talking about it it's got to happen in order for us to make that change but we're not dying gone we're dying changing there's a difference Hallelujah I'm glad bless His holy name Jesus went into that grave submissive to them men where they beat him cut him stabbed him Nails in him bloody all over but he he didn't come out that way he didn't come out that way he came out Victorious Lazarus died a sick man went into that grave and the Bible said it's 4 days he stinks by now and you would have smelted him but he came out of that grave at the voice of the Lord God that called him out and he came out a different man I'm saying to you this morning folks we got a trophy in this body be careful what you do to it how you abuse it how you take care of it because it don't belong to you we're just using it along the way belongs to him may God help us this morning if you have a need this morning if you know nothing about this but God's touched your heart you can get in this altar you can find out a lot more let's bow for just a minute anybody need to come this morning thank God thank God we can look at these wrinkled up bodies aching hurting bodies and say this is not the end it's only the beginning there's our hope for