Hi! Welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, you host for the daily challenges. These daily challenges are meant to help people explore what it means to follow Jesus even during our busy commuting lifestyle. If you’ve never looked into what that means in the first place, I’d really encourage you, check out our Christianity 101 course first. You can take it live in-person or through our mobile app; great introduction to the basic concepts of what it means to follow Jesus that we try to build on in the Daily Challenges.
Every day and week, we follow a rhythm to help us, as one community, learn what it means to follow Jesus even when we’re not physically together. Every Monday,we introduce the idea for the week. Every Tuesday, we see what the Bible has to say. Every Wednesday, we allow ourselves to be challenged in our thoughts. Every Thursday, we try to apply it and live it out in our lives. Every Friday, we take time to pray and reflect on the topic. Saturday is a day for rest and then Sunday is a day for community. We’re going to start gathering together as one community soon. We just recently had a great baptism service and celebration where a number of our members came together in one place to worship God. We’re going to do that more and more often over this year. So, stay tuned for some of our upcoming gatherings.
We’re in a series right now called, “Reset.” We’re looking at how deciding to follow Jesus resets everything in our lives. We’ve looked at a number of areas that it impacts. This week we’re going to look at how following Jesus impacts our view of sexuality and marriage.

Last week, we saw how following Jesus means we see the body and food differently, and how they are good things God created, but can be abused when used in the ways God didn’t create them to be used.

We also saw how following Jesus means his Holy Spirit lives in us, which is why our bodies can be called a temple. This means we can’t pretend to own our bodies, as followers of Jesus, but instead need to show reverence to God’s presence in us by caring for these bodies, using them as their creator intended.

This is going to be a helpful way to see our sexuality, as well. The passage from the Bible’s first letter to the Corinthians that we explored talked about food and the body as a temple, but Paul, the author, was not really making a point about food. He was using food as an example to show how the Corinthian Christians were abusing their gift of sexuality.

He challenges them not to be distracted, and think that sex is the most important thing in their lives, nor their source of identity, comfort or security. He wants them to stay focused on God, and see all other things in life through that lens. He wants them to think of themselves as people on a journey with a purpose, which necessarily means they will be different than those around them who are not on the same journey.

That’s hard in our world – particularly with sexuality, because we are a culture obsessed with sex, and it’s easy to forget there is more to us than biology! Some Christians or churches have responded by never talking about it, making it seem like sexuality and our bodies have nothing to do with God. But Paul takes neither approach; he says our bodies matter to God, because we matter to God.

See attached video:

Sex Is… from David Tate on Vimeo.

Sex is clearly on people’s minds. One survey asked Canadians how often they’d like to have sex, more than half of Canadians polled said they’d like at least twice a week. 20% of men said they’d like sex every day, but only 3% actually experience it.

There are some limits in people’s minds: In a Today’s Parent magazine survey, 82% of parents say sleep is more important than sex. The magazine readily admitted their sample was skewed heavily toward parents of young children, and primarily women.

On that note, fifty-seven percent of U.S. women would choose their mobile device over sex, according to another survey.

These represent some curious limits on how much sex people want, but God puts some serious limits on sex, that we’ll explore later this week.

In the meantime, here’s a question to consider:

Question: In what ways is our culture obsessed with sex? Think of commercials, businesses, events, etc. Does our culture place any limits on sex?

Well, have a great discussion. Don’t forget, we’re reading the Bible in sync as a community. So, check our website or app to see what today’s Bible reading is. Have a great one.

Read the Bible in Sync Today

Ryan Sim - January 16, 2014

Thursday - Act On It - Reset

Reset

Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Jesus is describing how he pushes the reset button in life. He uses imagery that sounds like baptism. Baptism is when someone is washed with water, to show on the outside what God is doing on the inside, washing away the sin from our hearts. When adults are baptized by becoming fully immersed, one can plainly see the imagery of them having died to sin, and then rising out of the waters to new life. We are baptizing our first RTC member this February. It will be her reset moment. Looking back on her life, she says this represents a new beginning. In the Christianity 101 course, we illustrate the life of faith with a line with markings at 0, 50 and 100. Whether we’ve run as far from God as possible, stayed close, or jumped around – what matters most is where you go from there. Will you move closer to God by following Jesus, or run away? The 50 point is when someone decides to do this intentionally, and although that moment is important and has a real impact, there are many moments to follow when the Holy Spirit transforms a Christian’s life. New decisions, directions and priorities all come with time and relationship with God through the Holy Spirit. In this series we’re going to look at a number of ways a “reset” life is different from before. Specifically: Reset: Goals Reset: Time Reset: Money Reset: Work Reset: Body & Food Reset: Sex & Marriage Reset: Family Reset: Compassion Reset: Nature Reset: Society Reset: Death Challenge: If you’d like to reset life, here are some steps to consider. Take our live Christianity 101 in the Cafe Course in Pickering starting next week to explore the first steps. Consider being baptized, to show on the outside the reset that has taken place inside. Just get in touch with Ryan if you’re interested! Reminder: Coffee hours are tonight at 7:30pm at Starbucks in the Ajax Chapters Store. See you there! Reminder: We are reading the Bible in sync as one community - so check out today's reading here. Reminder: The best way to grow spiritually this year is to join our Christianity 101 in the Cafe Course in Pickering starting January 22nd. Register for you and a friend today!

From Series: "Reset"

When our computers get bogged down and unmanageable, we know to hit a reset button to simply start over. Wouldn't a reset button be great in life? We know it would be complicated, with all our responsibilities and routines to consider, but imagine the freedom and refreshment of a new start in life! What would you do differently? What would you pay more attention to, and what would you ignore? How would you avoid getting bogged down and broken again? The great news is, in coming to earth as Jesus Christ, God has begun to "reset" our universe, our world, and even us. We're invited to start over with him, in what he calls his kingdom. We're invited to start a new life with a clean slate. What gets wiped clean, and lived differently, when God resets our lives? We'll explore how God resets these key areas of our lives: Reset: Goals Reset: Time Reset: Money Reset: Work Reset: Body & Food Reset: Sex & Marriage Reset: Family Reset: Compassion Reset: Nature Reset: Society Reset: Death Join us for the next several weeks, and invite God to reset your life.

Discuss

More From "Reset"

Powered by Series Engine