Is Body Image My Idol?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Body image and self-glory, that's the theme today.
00:00:08.220 | Body image, of course, is a preoccupation for many
00:00:10.880 | and there are huge dieting and physical training industries
00:00:14.260 | in our culture that have been established around us.
00:00:16.880 | So we have this question from a podcast listener named John
00:00:19.540 | who lives and works in Washington, D.C.
00:00:21.600 | and who wonders about what's really motivating him
00:00:23.800 | to get to the gym.
00:00:25.120 | Here's what John wrote.
00:00:26.360 | Dear Pastor John, I'm committed to working out at the gym.
00:00:29.160 | I have over the years become fit because of my consistency.
00:00:32.600 | My temptation is in making my body a temple of self-glory.
00:00:36.600 | I want others to be impressed with my looks.
00:00:39.400 | That's the honest truth, but I never say it that way.
00:00:42.360 | Few people would.
00:00:44.040 | At what point does working out cross the boundary
00:00:47.200 | between self-discipline and self-glorification?
00:00:51.400 | - I'll put my answer in a sentence
00:00:53.600 | and then I'll try to unpack it for its implications.
00:00:58.800 | The discipline of the pursuit of physical fitness
00:01:01.360 | becomes sinful self-glorification
00:01:04.000 | when it is no longer pursued as a means of,
00:01:07.680 | one, overcoming our own sin,
00:01:10.480 | two, serving others,
00:01:12.640 | three, glorifying Christ.
00:01:15.400 | Now this is a huge issue,
00:01:17.640 | both for men and women in our culture,
00:01:20.880 | because hour after hour, every day,
00:01:24.800 | through advertising and other media,
00:01:26.800 | we are being told that to be successful and happy,
00:01:30.840 | our bodies must have a certain appearance.
00:01:35.560 | So whether we're talking about the way we dress
00:01:39.960 | or the way we do our hair
00:01:42.240 | or the way we work out in order to be fit,
00:01:46.200 | the Christian needs to be clear
00:01:49.200 | about the way Jesus calls us to do this
00:01:53.240 | that makes us different from the world.
00:01:55.600 | And I think he does.
00:01:56.800 | And what I'm suggesting,
00:01:59.920 | what I'm suggesting is that there are three ways
00:02:04.280 | to measure whether our pursuit of fitness is sinful or not.
00:02:09.280 | And those three ways are,
00:02:13.240 | one, is that pursuit a genuine desire
00:02:18.240 | to defeat sin in my own life?
00:02:22.040 | Two, is that pursuit of fitness
00:02:25.200 | a genuine desire to become more useful
00:02:27.760 | in serving the temporal and eternal good of others?
00:02:30.680 | Three, is my pursuit of fitness
00:02:34.040 | owing to a genuine, expressing a genuine desire
00:02:38.080 | to show that Christ is more valuable to me than my looks
00:02:43.080 | or my health or my reputation as disciplined?
00:02:48.400 | So let's take a look at those one at a time.
00:02:51.920 | First, is your working out at the gym a strategy
00:02:56.920 | for overcoming sin in your life?
00:03:02.520 | I believe it can be.
00:03:04.560 | Paul said that he pummeled his body
00:03:08.720 | to keep it in subjection
00:03:10.840 | because he knew that there were powerful temptations
00:03:14.720 | that come from the flesh to undermine his ministry.
00:03:19.000 | Now, laziness is one of them.
00:03:21.600 | Over and over in the book of Proverbs,
00:03:24.080 | we are warned against being a sluggard.
00:03:27.160 | Proverbs 20, verse four,
00:03:28.960 | the sluggard does not plow in the autumn.
00:03:32.740 | He will seek at harvest and have nothing.
00:03:36.980 | Proverbs 21, 25, the desire of the sluggard,
00:03:41.980 | the lazy bones, kills him for his hands refuse to labor.
00:03:48.080 | So it is a good thing to exercise and eat and sleep
00:03:53.080 | in a healthy way so as to subdue the enslaving impulses
00:03:59.680 | of the body, including laziness.
00:04:03.960 | Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6, 12,
00:04:06.240 | "All things are lawful for me,
00:04:07.920 | but I will not be enslaved by anything."
00:04:12.920 | That's any good thing or any bad thing.
00:04:15.600 | It is good to exercise in order to defeat
00:04:20.600 | the sin of laziness and the love of ease.
00:04:24.860 | Now, as soon as I say that,
00:04:28.600 | every biblically mature saint realizes
00:04:33.440 | that Jesus also warned against boasting
00:04:38.440 | in that kind of self-discipline.
00:04:41.080 | He warned against loving the reputation
00:04:44.320 | of being a disciplined person.
00:04:47.080 | Matthew 6, 16, "When you fast,
00:04:50.400 | do not look gloomy like the hypocrites,
00:04:53.960 | for they disfigure their faces
00:04:56.200 | that their fasting may be seen by others.
00:05:00.260 | Truly I say to you, they have received their reward,
00:05:02.720 | but when you fast," and fasting here really
00:05:05.960 | is any kind of self-denial, right?
00:05:08.300 | Fasting from television, and so you don't have a TV,
00:05:11.120 | John Piper, whoa, you so proud of that, blah, blah, blah.
00:05:14.120 | Or fasting from ease, so you're gonna pump iron
00:05:17.080 | until you're exhausted, or fasting from food, or whatever.
00:05:20.600 | Fasting stands here for any kind of self-discipline.
00:05:24.500 | "When you fast, anoint your head with and wash your face
00:05:28.360 | that your fasting may not be seen by others,
00:05:33.360 | but by your Father who's in secret,
00:05:36.600 | and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."
00:05:38.600 | So yes, by all means, let's be disciplined
00:05:43.120 | and self-denying in the pursuit of defeating sin
00:05:47.800 | in our own lives, and let us be ever alert
00:05:52.800 | to the deceitfulness of sin that causes us to boast
00:05:58.260 | in the very triumphs over sin,
00:06:02.280 | and thus turn triumph over sin into defeat by another sin.
00:06:07.280 | That's how deceitful we are in our own hearts,
00:06:12.100 | which leads now to the second way that we measure
00:06:15.540 | whether our pursuit of fitness is sinful.
00:06:19.760 | Is our pursuit of fitness owing to a genuine desire
00:06:24.760 | to become more useful in serving the temporal
00:06:28.800 | and eternal good of others?
00:06:30.520 | Are you aiming to be fit in order to be faithful?
00:06:34.580 | Are you aiming to be healthy in order to be helpful?
00:06:41.120 | Is your concern with your looks
00:06:44.140 | a concern to love other people better?
00:06:47.780 | I've got those underlined in my notes here.
00:06:52.020 | When the disciples argued about who was the greatest,
00:06:58.040 | Jesus said, "If anyone would be first,
00:07:02.120 | he must be last of all and servant of all."
00:07:06.260 | In other words, instead of mirrors in the gym,
00:07:10.080 | there should be big signs on the wall.
00:07:12.800 | He who would be great must be the servant of all.
00:07:17.800 | So you wanna be strong?
00:07:19.920 | You wanna be fit?
00:07:20.980 | You wanna be buff?
00:07:22.360 | Are you going to use it to be a more faithful servant
00:07:26.840 | of people, or are you out to be seen by others?
00:07:31.600 | If you are, that's a damnable attitude,
00:07:34.440 | and you're in big trouble.
00:07:37.440 | That's what Jesus would say.
00:07:38.720 | He did say it.
00:07:40.040 | Here's the third criteria.
00:07:42.420 | Is the pursuit of fitness a genuine desire
00:07:48.360 | to show that Christ is more valuable to you
00:07:52.280 | than your looks or your health
00:07:55.440 | or your reputation for being disciplined?
00:07:58.160 | Are you seeking to make Christ look great, or only yourself?
00:08:03.160 | So here's what Paul said, Ephesians 6:10.
00:08:08.160 | "Finally, be strong in the Lord
00:08:13.160 | and in the strength of His might."
00:08:18.240 | In other words, true strength.
00:08:22.140 | It's true strength when we are seeking to be strong
00:08:27.140 | in the strength of Christ.
00:08:31.400 | Not strength in ourselves, but strength in the Lord.
00:08:35.560 | In other words, our aim at the gym is to be strong
00:08:40.560 | in a way that makes Jesus look strong.
00:08:46.560 | We gotta figure that out, or we're gonna be idolaters.
00:08:48.920 | We're gonna be vain glorious.
00:08:51.020 | Here's the way Peter put it in 1 Peter 1:24.
00:08:55.360 | "All flesh is like grass,
00:08:58.320 | and all its glory like the flower of grass.
00:09:01.160 | The grass withers, the flower falls,
00:09:04.600 | but the word of the Lord remains forever."
00:09:06.860 | The point is, in the gym,
00:09:10.500 | the glory that people are seeking is like grass.
00:09:15.360 | It withers, it falls.
00:09:16.800 | Believe me, this is, believe me, I am 70,
00:09:21.520 | and I have been jogging regularly since I was 22.
00:09:26.520 | It is not a fountain of youth, folks.
00:09:30.440 | You're gonna sag, you're gonna be wrinkled,
00:09:33.200 | you're gonna be splotchy, you're gonna be scaly,
00:09:36.720 | you're not gonna be pretty or cool.
00:09:41.240 | And if you have invested your life in that,
00:09:44.480 | oh, it will be, you will look pathetic
00:09:47.340 | like all those older folks in Phoenix
00:09:49.160 | with their ridiculous tans
00:09:51.440 | and their sagging wrinkled skin.
00:09:53.680 | It's just ridiculous.
00:09:56.040 | The word of the Lord remains forever,
00:10:01.400 | and that word says, "Work out faithfully."
00:10:05.840 | That is, work out at the gym to defeat sin in your own life,
00:10:10.680 | and work out at the gym to become more useful
00:10:13.960 | in serving the temporal and eternal good of others,
00:10:17.760 | and work out at the gym, yes, you can,
00:10:21.240 | to show that Christ is more valuable, more precious to you
00:10:26.240 | than your looks or your health
00:10:28.480 | or your reputation for being so disciplined.
00:10:31.780 | - Thank you, Pastor John.
00:10:34.320 | And John, thank you for the question.
00:10:35.920 | If you have a question about life for Pastor John,
00:10:38.380 | we'd love to read it and possibly respond to it on air.
00:10:41.840 | Type it out and send it to us in an email.
00:10:44.040 | You can do this through our online home
00:10:45.680 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn,
00:10:49.680 | or you can simply email it to askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:10:53.860 | Well, is it possible to become legalistic
00:10:57.920 | about not being a legalist?
00:11:01.000 | (chuckles)
00:11:02.320 | That's meta, that's Friday.
00:11:04.640 | I'm Tony, I'll see you then.
00:11:06.080 | (upbeat music)
00:11:08.660 | (upbeat music)
00:11:11.240 | [BLANK_AUDIO]