Welcome to the daily disciple podcast, where we seek daily to be with and to become like Jesus, our teacher. It was good, God said, when He created the heavens and the earth. And then when He got to the crescendo of His good creation and formed Adam and Eve, He said, it is very good. And so the title of our podcast this morning is, it was very good.
And we are going to be in the Gospel of John chapter 1 as we hang out this morning and do what friends that our friends of Jesus do and begin a conversation with Jesus and enjoy that conversation with Jesus throughout the rest of the day. So good morning, grab a cup of coffee, grab a cup of tea, probably not both, but whatever one you fancy more. Grab a Bible, a journal, find a spot, go on a walk, let's just start enjoying Jesus. So the Gospel of John, and again, it was very good.
Now, I'm going to ask an interesting question just to give us a role in this morning. And that question is, how are you with pleasure? How are you with enjoying all of the pleasure that can be experienced by the five senses as a result of being human? As a result of being wonderfully human, how are you at enjoying your body?
And if you're married, I guess another good question would be, how are you about enjoying someone else enjoying your body? How are you with pleasure? How are you with taste? Like a great steak?
Or how are you with touch? Like a good massage? Or how are you with sight? Like a sunset or a wave crashing on the beach or whatever it might be?
And is that stuff spiritual? Or have you maybe been taught that pleasure or too much enjoyment is unspiritual or it's bad or it's just downright dangerous? Because if you have been taught that and many of us have, that can be so destructive. Because it would be so devastating to our view of God who is creative and who created our bodies with the five senses so that we can enjoy the pleasure that can be accessed through the five senses in God's good world.
So with those questions and that kind of chatting that we have just done, we're going to go to John chapter 1 and as some of you know, this is a great poem that begins the Gospel and it says, in the beginning was the word, which is Jesus, and the word was with God, so there's a distinction, but the word was God, so divinity. So Jesus is distinct from the Father, unique, but Jesus is one with the Father, so divine. And then this one that is to be identified with God, but also to be identified as unique from God in Him His life, in Him His light. And then the passage comes to its crescendo and this is what we're going to read, John 1, 14, the word Jesus became flesh and made His dwelling among us.
We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and full of truth. Go to verse 18, no one has ever seen God but the one and only Son who is Himself God in His enclosed relationship with the Father has made Him known. And now I'm talking, John's no longer talking, and Jesus has made God known in the flesh, in the flesh, in the body. And Jesus was given the five senses and entered into God's good world and brought light and life and truth and goodness.
And remember when God treated Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God said, oh wow, not just good, but very good. Jesus became fully human, Jesus took on flesh. And the whole gospel of John is confronting Gnosticism, right? Gnosticism, what's an ancient heresy that said spirit is good, but body is bad.
So Gnosticism denied that Jesus actually came in the flesh because flesh is bad. Gnosticism denied the goodness of creation, the goodness of pleasure. But we find in Genesis again that God created Adam and Eve to engage in all of the five senses, smell, sight, touch, taste, and enjoy it. And Jesus came to dwell in a body.
And come on, he's going to be resurrected, or sorry, he has been resurrected, bodily. Which is the ultimate affirmation of God's good creation and pleasure and the five senses. And all that God declared to be good, so God took on a body, flesh, and he remains embodied. And we're going to get a new body, and creation is going to be renewed.
So here's, I think, part of the point, God is pro-pleasure. God is pro-pleasure. God is comfortable in a body, obviously, according to John 1 verse 14, and Paul echoes that, that the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in a body. Paul says that in Colossians.
And so I think the question presses, are you comfortable in your body? Are you comfortable to dwell in one to enjoy the pleasures as a result of the five senses that God embedded in the body? And of course, and some of you are hoping that I get here, and we need to get here, creation has been broken. Our bodies have been broken, they've been abused.
And that's why God came to redeem, to restore, to renew, but not to do something different than bodies, but to renew, to restore, to redeem. Or maybe you've been hurt by touch, or hurt by sight. Maybe you've experienced pleasure, or one of the five senses gone horribly wrong, and you've experienced the ramifications of that, and your family of origin, and your life, and the lives of those that you love. But this is so important.
The answer to the abuse of pleasure is not to deny it, but to sanctify it. The answer to the abuse of pleasure is not to deny it, but to sanctify it. Everything is spiritual, unless it's abused. No bit of creation experienced through the five senses should own us, we should steward it.
That's how God intended it, whether it's, you know, taste, or the smell of fresh baked cookies, or if you're married, sexual pleasure and experimentation, or buying someone a gift, wrapping it up, and giving it to them, or giving someone a hug, or looking at a beautiful sunset, Satan did not create pleasure, or pleasure centers in the body, or taste buds. Satan can't create, only God can create, Satan can tempt us to abuse the five senses, and does all the time. But again, the answer to the abuse of pleasure is not to deny it, but to sanctify it. And honestly, the Bible, and I think it comes to its full flower in John chapter 1, the word became flesh.
The Bible's a pleasure manual. It invites us into pleasure. Of course, it warns us of the abuse of pleasure in the five senses, but God is pro-pleasure. He's pro-body.
He's pro-creation. So John 1-14, the word became flesh and body and dwelt among us. And I know that this would be a challenging podcast for those of us that grew up in a very conservative context, or for those of us that have been abused by the five senses, but God's the Redeemer. He's the restorer.
He's the renewer. He takes great joy in us, taking great joy in creation. And that's why he has given us the gift of pleasure and the gift of the five senses to experience pleasure. And so as we engage in God's world in this way, not abusing, but stewarding the five senses and pleasure, we enter into the life that God indeed created us for.
We'll talk soon. Thanks for listening to the Daily Decycle Podcast. We truly hope that you were encouraged by it today. Now, if you would like to support or if you have any questions about the Daily Decycle Podcast, feel free to contact us through our Inland Vineyard Church app.
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