For Those with Broken Bodies

April 6, 2025 Pastor Chris Oswald

Thesis The body was designed primarily to glorify God, and this purpose can be fulfilled whether the body is healthy or sick, making physical suffering bearable when understood rightly and sexual temptation resistible when the body's true purpose is remembered.

Series

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Type

Topical

Tone

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Method

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What's in this sermon

The shape of the argument

20 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.

Pastoral correction · unit #9

"Direct pastoral application to the sick. The cure for frustration is cognitive reorientation—repeatedly reminding yourself that you can still do the primary thing (glorify God) even when peripheral capacities are lost. Includes both negative instruction (stop focusing on what you can't do) and positive instruction (focus on what you can do)."

Doctrinal loci· 12 surfaced

Sanctification · 7 Anthropology · 6 Pastoral Theology · 6 Eschatology · 5 Doxology / Worship · 3 Bibliology · 2 Christology · 2 Hamartiology · 2 Ethics / Moral Theology · 1 Providence / Sovereignty · 1 Soteriology · 1 Theology Proper · 1

Bible citations· 3

1 Corinthians 6:13 | 1 Corinthians 7 | Ephesians 5

Illustrations· 3

analogy · unit #2 — Standard philosophical illustration of teleology using a coffee mug. The design reveals the purpose—demonstrating the principle that will be applied to the human body.
personal story · unit #3 — Extended personal story about Chris's mother using butter knives as hammers. The illustration demonstrates misuse of an object for an unintended purpose—it 'kind of works' but violates the design intent. This will serve as the analogy for sexual sin.
hypothetical · unit #11 — Hypothetical illustration distinguishing primary from peripheral purposes. A car with a crock pot is amusing but unnecessary—the car's purpose is transportation. Similarly, the body's peripheral functions (looking good, feeling good, productivity) are non-essential compared to its primary function (glorifying God).

Theological claims· 4

The human body's fundamental purpose is to glorify God, not to serve personal happiness, productivity, or financial gain. unit #7
Both sexual temptation and discouragement over physical suffering are resolved by recovering the body's true teleological purpose. unit #8
Christ took on a body to be crucified and killed so that believers could receive new resurrection bodies. unit #14
In the glorified state, all bodily functions will be perfectly harmonized with the body's primary purpose of glorifying God, eliminating the possibility of misuse. unit #15

Read it

Full transcript

11,762 characters 20 units ~13 min reading time Listen instead →

0 · Chris introduces the podcast by sharing his own current experience with severe nerve pain and light physical activity at the gym

Sam. Well, hello there. How's it going? My name's Chris. I'm a pastor at Providence Community Church, and this is the Providence Podcast. I just got back from the gym, was a pretty light endeavor, dealing with some nerve pain and so forth in my back and my left leg and knee. So I'm kind of mostly focusing right now on just getting the circulation going and heating up those muscles, getting the lymph. The lymph juices moving and so on and so forth. So mostly just stationary bike stuff and some treadmill stuff. And then I did a little bit of a upper back lifting. But really the aim right now this week has just been to deal with this wave of pain that I've been experiencing. Some of the worst pain I've actually had in a really long time, maybe ever, except for acute injuries. And so that's been kind of an adventure. It started, I think, with the flight to the Philippines, and it's just kind of continued to get worse and worse and worse. Anyway, so that's what I was just doing. I was at the gym, and then while I was on the exercise bike, I was thinking about the people in the Providence family that are not doing well physically. We've got a few folks that have had rather acute issues recently, and some of them just sound absolutely terrible. And so my mind is often with them, and my prayers are often with them. As I am doing physical activity, I'm thinking about them and what they're going through.

1 · Brief definitional pivot from personal narrative to the philosophical concept that will organize the sermon's argument

This led me, in a weird way, to begin thinking about teleology. Teleology is just this way of understanding things by sort of figuring out their created purpose.

2 · Standard philosophical illustration of teleology using a coffee mug

And a good example that people use is if you look at a coffee mug, you see it's got a little handle there. You see, it's a vessel. And you can sort of infer, just by the design of the thing, what it was designed to do, which is to hold beverages, and the handle implies the holding of a hot beverage and so on and so forth.

3 · Extended personal story about Chris's mother using butter knives as hammers

So I was thinking about teleology, and then I started thinking about my mom. When I was growing up, my mom was, and still is just a relentless decorator. It just never stops. She herself just had a bit of a health issue, was in the hospital for a few days. And I guarantee you, I promise you this, I haven't talked to her about this, but I promise you that as she was laying in that hospital bed, she was looking around that room, thinking of what she would do to decorate it if she were allowed to do so. I used to come home almost every day from school and see something that my mom had done at home in terms of decorating. And one of the most comical aspects of her kind of manic decorating was that she would almost never use a hammer to drive in these little finishing nails that she used to hang up things. Her go to tool was a butter knife. I'm guessing that's just because the hammer was further away and she didn't think that it would necessarily be needed or what. But it was pretty common to see her hammering little finish nails into the wall with. With a butter knife. And you know why I was thinking about that was it's a teleological kind of curiosity, because butter knife is definitely not made to do that. It's definitely not made to drive in nails, but it kind of works. And because it kind of works, one can forget that it's not really intended to be used for that purpose. I don't actually remember seeing my mom use a butter knife for the purpose it was designed. They were mostly just little tiny hammers.

4 · Explicit pivot from the butter knife illustration to the sermon's main subject—the teleology of the human body

Anyway, I was thinking about that related to. To the. To the body in particular.

5 · Direct citation of 1 Corinthians 6:13 with minimal framing

And want to talk a little bit about this little line that Paul writes in First Corinthians 6 where he says, the Lord is for the body and the body is for the Lord. The body is not meant for sexual morality, but for the Lord and for. And the Lord for the body.

6 · First direct application connecting the butter knife illustration to sexual sin

A couple thoughts here. First of all, toward those people who are struggling or tempted toward sexual sin, I want you to think about the butter knife. Your body is not actually built to be an endorphin and dopamine playground for you to explore. Will it kind of work for that? Yeah, it kind of works for that. And thus so many people are enslaved to using it improperly because it kind of works, but it's not actually designed for that. Your body was actually designed to bring glory to God. That's what it was designed for. That's the teleological purpose of your body. And so one of the things you'll find when you finally stop using it for what it wasn't designed for is you begin to look back and think, why did I ever think that was okay? Like, why did I ever think that was fine? And the answer is, well, because it kind of worked. You kind of cheated the teleological function enough to feel like it kind of worked.

7 · Central theological claim shifted now to address the physically suffering

And then more directed toward those who were and are struggling physically. I want to impart something to you that I think is just Fundamental to being able to endure physical difficulty. Well, and that is to just understand that your body is actually not teleologically made. The human body is not teleologically made mostly for your happiness. It's not used mostly for you to get things done. It's not used mostly for you to earn money and so on and so forth. The fundamental purpose of your body is to bring glory to God.

8 · Synthesis moment connecting the two audiences—sexually tempted and physically suffering

And you know, you can see how actually these two groups of people, some who are struggling in a way of misusing their body for sexual pleasure, and some who are just frustrated because their bodies are so broken, they're not working like they're supposed to, it's keeping them from doing things they want to do. You can see that both of those frustrations and discouragements must be cured by a reexamination of fundamental teleology. And that is, what is your body for?

9 · Direct pastoral application to the sick

And the answer is, of course your body is for the Lord. And so when someone is sick and they're frustrated by all they can't do, the only actual cure to that frustration and the only way you'll actually get joy and peace and contentment in the season of sickness is to just keep reminding yourself, well, actually this body is mostly for glorifying God. And right now I can do that. Stop focusing on all the things you can't do and just understand what you can do is actually the most important thing and what your body is mostly for. And it is to bring glory to God.

10 · Shepherding moment acknowledging the difficulty of the application

So the challenge there is because it's such a supernatural truth, it's such a not self evident truth that you're going to have to keep telling yourself that in the middle of physical sickness, you're going to have to keep telling yourself over and over again. My body is actually fundamentally for bringing glory to God. And I can do that in sickness, I can do that in suffering. My body can still fulfill its primary purpose, even though a lot of these peripheral purposes are kept from me.

11 · Hypothetical illustration distinguishing primary from peripheral purposes

You could imagine someone inventing a car that has, amongst the various gadgets inside a, like a, like a hot plate or, you know, a crock pot or something. This is sort of, you know, the dream vehicle for some of us Baptist types. It's like I bought a minivan with a built in, you know, a built in crock pot. That'd be pretty awesome. But if you don't have a crock pot in your car, it's, it's okay because that's not really what cars are for. Cars are for getting you from point A to point B and all the other things that cars could potentially do, including making you look cool, giving you a fun experience, cooking eggs or a pot roast, all of these other things that a body could do. If your body doesn't do those things, that's okay, because it can do the one thing it was made for, and that is to bring glory to God.

12 · Explicit structural signal marking the shift from the body-for-the-Lord half of the sermon to the Lord-for-the-body half

Now, I want to leave you. This is going to be real short, but I want to leave you with this great glorious promise that is contained in this phrase where Paul says that the body was for the Lord and the Lord for the body. We've really only talked so far about how the body is for the Lord. What does it mean when it says the Lord for the body?

13 · Methodological aside acknowledging interpretive uncertainty while defending the theological move

Well, there's a few layers to this. One of the nice things about being well read in a systematic theology sense is that you can kind of reliably say true things, even if the text isn't actually about that. So I don't know if what I'm about to say is Paul's point. I know one layer of Paul's point is he's using bridal language. The body's for the Lord and the Lord's for the body. He talks about this again in First Corinthians 7. You know, husband is for the wife and the wife is for the husband. It's this mutual ownership, this mutual relationship. That's true also in the book of Ephesians in chapter five. So that's definitely one thing he's saying, but there's another layer to this. And again, I don't know for sure if Paul's saying this. I'm not going to take the time to go study this text extensively because I know what I'm telling you is right. I just don't know if it's right in this verse. It's encouraging nonetheless.

14 · Central Christological and eschatological claim

The first encouragement, you were made to glorify God. You can do that in sickness. The second encouragement, what does it mean when it says the Lord is for the body? One thing that's true is that Jesus Christ took on a body so that it could be crucified, it could be made unwell, it could be disfigured, it could be killed. And in those actions, that body that was given to him made a way for you to know without a shadow of a doubt that one day, according to his perfect timing, you will receive a new body.

15 · Eschatological elaboration connecting glorification to the sermon's teleological theme

Jesus took a body in part so that it could be crucified, killed and buried and raised so that he could bring you and me along into this incredible experience. We call glorification, where one day when the Lord returns, we receive new bodies that work perfectly. And then, you know, there's really no. Like, there's really no gap anymore between all the peripheral things a body can do and the main thing a body is supposed to do, which is to glorify God. See, now, especially using an example of sexual immorality, there's a big overlap. Like, you could potentially use the body for a peripheral purpose that completely eliminates its primary purpose, which is to glorify God. But in heaven, in the new heavens and the new earth, all of that will be perfectly harmonized and synced up.

16 · Direct pastoral application of the eschatological promise to the chronically ill

And so one of the things I tell sick people, people who have chronic disease and so forth, is the Lord is for your body. He has a plan. He took on flesh in part to give you a new body one day. And you will be killing it one day. One day you will absolutely be well.

17 · Concrete instruction on how to apply the teleological truth in the daily experience of suffering

In the meantime, comfort yourself by understanding that the primary thing your body's for is not frustrated by your sickness. The primary thing your body's for is not frustrated or set back by your sickness. It's still fulfilled. That is, your body is still glorifying God, whether it's working perfectly or barely working at all. If you will, by faith, hand your body over to the Lord daily, repeatedly. Every time the ache comes, every time the frustration comes, every time there's a new revelation of something you can't do, keep giving your body to the Lord and saying, you know what? I can't do X, I can't do Y, I can't do Z, but I can still do A. And A is glorify God with my body.

18 · Concluding pastoral promise coupling present comfort (God will give you joy if you remember the truth) with future hope (complete healing beyond imagination)

God will take care of you and he will give you joy if you can just keep reminding yourself over and over that fact. And then couple that with this great hope we have that the time is coming when all of this will be done and you will not suffer anymore. You will be as healthy as is possible. Healthy beyond our wildest imagination, our ability to ask or imagine.

19 · Final pastoral close returning to the podcast's conversational frame

So, yeah, that's what I was thinking about at the gym. And I just wanted to pass that on to especially my friends who are struggling physically. God is using you. You need to just take that by faith and keep telling it to yourself. And one day, God will renew you. All right, friends, God bless. Be well. Samy blows.

Where this fits

Recent preaching context

The three sermons immediately preceding this one in the preaching schedule.

Mar 28, 2025

A COVID Post-Mortem: Why Did So Many Godly People Get It Wrong?

Many godly people got COVID wrong because decades of "gospel-centered" teaching actually centered on justification alone, leaving believers unprepared to recognize mass deception, and because wooden biblicism prevented them from reasoning out biblical principles about government untrustworthiness and human greed when no explicit "COVID verse" existed.

Apr 4, 2025

Facts and Feelings in the Christian Life

Because both intellect and emotions are disabled by sin, Christians must anchor themselves in the inerrant Word of God as their only reliable guide, while patiently training their feelings through obedience, gratitude, and the Psalms.

Apr 4, 2025

10 Minutes on the Saving Foreknowledge of God

Biblical foreknowledge refers to God's initiating, covenantal love in choosing specific persons for salvation, not His passive observation of who would choose Him.

April 6 · This sermon

For Those with Broken Bodies

The body was designed primarily to glorify God, and this purpose can be fulfilled whether the body is healthy or sick, making physical suffering bearable when understood rightly and sexual temptation resistible when the body's true purpose is remembered.

Take it further

Discuss · apply · pray

Small groups

6 discussion questions

Chris talked about the body having a fundamental purpose that transcends personal happiness or productivity. What did he identify as the bod…

Daily readings

5-day reading plan

This week we walk through the gospel's reframing of our broken bodies—from their true purpose in glorifying God, through the dangers of misusing them, to Christ's incarnate guarantee of resurrection wholeness.

Prayer

Prayer for Bodies Broken and Redeemed

Father, we come before you with grateful hearts, acknowledging that you alone are worthy of all glory and honor. We adore you for the wisdom…

Family table

What Is Your Body For?

This prompt invites your family to think concretely about the body's purpose beyond what culture tells us. Listen for whether kids first nam…

Couples

Bodies Made for Glory

What aspect of your body's purpose—to glorify God rather than serve your own happiness or comfort—did the sermon help you see more clearly t…

Memorize

1 Corinthians 6:13

This verse crystallizes the sermon's central claim that the body's fundamental purpose is to glorify God, not to serve personal desire or satisfaction. It directly addresses both sexual temptation and the disorientation that comes from viewing the body primarily through the lens of personal comfort, making it the theological anchor for understanding how to respond faithfully whether in sickness or health.

Small-group discussion

6 questions for your group this week

Chris talked about the body having a fundamental purpose that transcends personal happiness or productivity. What did he identify as the body's true purpose, and where does Scripture ground this claim?

1 Corinthians 6:13

→ How does this purpose differ from the way our culture typically talks about what our bodies are 'for'?
The sermon surfaced two specific struggles—sexual temptation and discouragement over physical suffering. What's the connection between these two struggles, and how does recovering the body's true purpose address both of them?
In what ways does sexual sin—even when it feels consensual or pleasurable—actually enslave us and work against the body's God-given design?

1 Corinthians 7

→ What's the difference between a body that's being used for its intended purpose and a body that's been misdirected toward personal gratification?
Chris emphasized that the gospel isn't primarily about escaping our bodies but about Christ taking on a body and redeeming it. Why does the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus matter for how we think about our own bodies today?
If you're currently living with a broken or suffering body, how might the conviction that your body can still glorify God change the way you interpret your pain or limitation this week?

→ What would it look like to actively glorify God through your body in the midst of that suffering, rather than waiting for healing before you worship?
The sermon promises that Christ's resurrection guarantees our future resurrection and complete healing. How should this eschatological hope reshape the way we relate to our bodies right now—not as a means of escape, but as a motivation for stewardship?

Ephesians 5

Draft · pending review

Daily readings · Monday–Friday

5-day reading plan

Monday 1 Corinthians 6:13

Paul cuts through cultural accommodation with a radical reorientation: "The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." This is not prudery but telos—the body exists in a covenantal relationship with the risen Christ, ordered toward His glory. When we grasp this primary purpose, we begin to see how every use of our bodies—whether in work, rest, or sexuality—either honors or dishonors the One who purchased us.

Tuesday 1 Corinthians 7

Paul addresses marriage, singleness, and sexual desire within a framework of undivided devotion to the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:32–35). He is not condemning sexuality but reordering it—marriage itself is sanctified when the body is given to spouse and to God in that unified purpose. The temptation to sexual sin loses its power not through white-knuckle resistance but through the glad recovery of what our bodies are actually *for*: reflecting Christ's covenant love and lordship in all we do.

Wednesday Ephesians 5

Paul describes the church as Christ's body, spotless and radiant, presented in wholeness to Him (Ephesians 5:25–27). This vision of perfected embodiment shows us the *trajectory* of redemption: just as Christ sanctifies the church into flawless unity with Himself, so He will perfect our bodies so completely that every appetite, strength, and sensation glorifies Him without the possibility of rebellion. We taste this future now in moments of undivided worship and obedience.

Thursday 1 Corinthians 7

Woven through Paul's teaching on the body's purpose is the apostle's certainty that our mortal, struggling flesh has been redeemed by Christ's incarnate, crucified, and risen body (1 Corinthians 7:4, 23—"you are not your own; you were bought at a price"). The price was not abstract forgiveness but God Himself enfleshed, broken, and raised. This transaction guarantees that our bodies are not disposable—they are the *inheritance* Christ purchased through His own embodied suffering.

Friday Ephesians 5

As we behold Christ's glory reflected in the church's sanctification (Ephesians 5:26–27), we are invited to see our own broken and aching bodies not as failures but as vessels still belonging to Him and still capable of worship. Even in suffering, the body glorifies God—through patient endurance, through the testimony of hope, through vulnerability that shows Christ's strength made perfect in weakness. The Lord has a concrete plan for your suffering body, and Christ's incarnation guarantees you will one day be completely well.

Draft · pending review

Pray together this week

Prayer for Bodies Broken and Redeemed

Father, we come before you with grateful hearts, acknowledging that you alone are worthy of all glory and honor. We adore you for the wisdom by which you created our bodies not as ends in themselves, but as instruments designed to glorify your name. We marvel at your sovereign plan, which has woven our very flesh into the tapestry of your redemptive purposes.

Yet we confess that we often forget this fundamental truth about our bodies. Some of us have yielded to sexual temptation, abusing our bodies in ways that feel momentarily satisfying but violate your design and enslave us to sin. Others of us lie in bed, weak and broken by illness and pain, and despair that we have nothing left to offer you. We admit our struggle: we have been taught by the world to measure our bodies' worth by productivity, pleasure, and the comfort they can provide us. Forgive us for these false measures of meaning.

We thank you that Christ took on a body—flesh like ours—and offered it up at Calvary so that we might be set free from sin's dominion and freed for your glory (1 Corinthians 6:13). In the gospel, we have both forgiveness for the ways we have misused our bodies and the promise of resurrection bodies perfectly fitted to worship you forever. We cling to your word that Christ's incarnation guarantees our complete restoration, that one day every ache, every shame, every limitation will be swallowed up in the renewal of all things.

Grant us, we pray, the grace this week to see our bodies—whether strong or suffering—as vehicles for your praise. When temptation arises, remind us of our true design and give us power to refuse it. When sickness tempts us toward despair, renew our conviction that a broken body can still glorify its Maker, and sustain us with the certain hope of the resurrection to come. Make us a people who find our deepest contentment not in bodily comfort but in bodily obedience to you.

To you, Father, through the finished work of your Son and by the power of your Spirit, be all glory and dominion forever. Amen.

Draft · pending review

Sunday-evening family table

What Is Your Body For?

For the parent

This prompt invites your family to think concretely about the body's purpose beyond what culture tells us. Listen for whether kids first name comfort, health, or happiness—then gently guide them toward the sermon's central claim: that our bodies exist primarily to glorify God.

Pastor Chris said that our bodies aren't mainly for feeling good, making money, or doing what we want. He said our bodies are for glorifying God. Can you think of ways your body right now—even if it's tired or hurting—can still glorify God?

works for ages 7+

Draft · pending review

Couples · three questions over coffee

Bodies Made for Glory

What aspect of your body's purpose—to glorify God rather than serve your own happiness or comfort—did the sermon help you see more clearly this week?
How might we be tempted as a couple to misuse our bodies or to despair over physical limitation, and how does remembering Christ's incarnation and resurrection change the way we face those temptations together?
What specific burden or struggle with your body could we pray for one another about—trusting that even now, in weakness or suffering, your body can still glorify the God who made it and redeemed it?

Draft · pending review

Memory verse this week

1 Corinthians 6:13

Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food—and God will do away with both of them. But the body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

Why this verse: This verse crystallizes the sermon's central claim that the body's fundamental purpose is to glorify God, not to serve personal desire or satisfaction. It directly addresses both sexual temptation and the disorientation that comes from viewing the body primarily through the lens of personal comfort, making it the theological anchor for understanding how to respond faithfully whether in sickness or health.

Draft · pending review

Where this was preached

About the church

Providence Community Church

Lenexa, KS
Sundays · 10:00 AM
About us · What we believe

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# Providence Community Church

A church preaching expository sermons through the books of the Bible.

## Sermons
- [A COVID Post-Mortem: Why Did So Many Godly People Get It Wrong? (2025-03-28)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/03/a-covid-post-mortem-why-did-so-many-godly-people-get-it-wrong)
- [Facts and Feelings in the Christian Life (2025-04-04)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/04/facts-and-feelings-in-the-christian-life)
- [10 Minutes on the Saving Foreknowledge of God (2025-04-04)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/04/10-minutes-on-the-saving-foreknowledge-of-god)
- [For Those with Broken Bodies (2025-04-06)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/04/for-those-with-broken-bodies)

## About
- [About the church](/about)
- [Plan a visit](/visit)

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