God's World Created: Becoming Fully Human

Hello and welcome to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast.

Thank you so much for listening.

We're Startup Church.

We just planted in September, 2020 and at the Kalamazoo church, we believe that Christianity is done best when it is done together.

And so if you live in the Kalamazoo area, we would love to connect, be it coming to a Sunday service, one of our small groups, or even just grabbing coffee with a member to learn more.

You can visit kalamazoo.church in order to do that.

We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today.

Like Mark said, today's lesson is becoming fully human.

It is the next progression in our story through thread and a little background thread is this awesome, hopefully this really, you know, long program that we're going to embark on and digging through the story of us via the Bible.

You know, how does the Bible just connect with our lives, with just the whole story of how God wove us.

And this is, I was saying, I was like, this is a really important lesson, which I was like, oh dear, why am I preaching this?

But at the same time, I was like, amen, I'm so happy that I get to, you know, we get to talk about becoming fully human because this is the story of why God created man.

But this idea of becoming fully human, I have felt a lot in the last two weeks.

Two weeks ago, me and about half of this church got a lovely stomach virus.

We, I've had about multiple conversations where it's like, yeah, I also, you know, lost everything that my body seemed to have holed up in liquid state.

And, right, that's about all I can say without trying to, you know, not ruin everyone's breakfast.

Right, but like, last week was, it was humbling, right?

I felt really sick, and then like in the middle of me feeling sick, I hear this scream from Jordan and Maddie's room.

So I live with the, with the sings.

I'm like, I'm sick.

I hear this, oh, and I'm like, oh, that's not good.

And I'm like sick.

I'm barely keeping together, opening the door.

And Bianca's there and she goes, yeah, George just threw up all over.

And I'm like, nice.

And, but then like I get to church and people are like, yeah, I've not felt good this week.

I went to campus.

I had like three guys that were studying the Bible.

It's like, I can't do anything this week.

I'm like, no worries.

Right, it's just like this like really just like weak thing where it's like, it happens.

But like, we're like, please don't tell me.

Don't ask me a question.

It's a humbling moment.

We can all think back to some of those really humbling moments.

And then this week, so a lot of you know who like has seen me.

And you know that there's something different to my face.

I have, I have sadly lost my beard.

If I could do a moment of silence, I would, but we got to keep this train rolling.

So I was like trying to like, I've been doing like a chin strap like into the beard.

I was like, it kind of looks cool.

I thought I liked it.

But when you do that, obviously you have to trim up.

Like, yeah, trim it.

And I just was tired.

I wasn't thinking in the morning.

And I just went, and I was like, no, I don't know why I did that.

And so the next step is like, all right, all right, I messed up the beard.

That's fine.

We'll go goatee.

And it was fun.

Ryan over here, like we had a good talk.

He goes, you shouldn't have done it the way you did it.

Because I like tried to line it up like this, right, like straight up.

And Ryan, I was telling this to Ryan.

He goes, you don't have that face structure, buddy.

And I was like, you're right.

I don't.

He goes, you needed to do it like this.

And I was like, I'm aware after I did it.

So then the next step, I mean, you know, 27-year-olds, I just don't want a baby face anymore.

So we're rocking the mustache for the foreseeable next three days.

So there's that.

This week, so Jaron's gone, right, and he's gracious enough to give me his Prius to drive.

Because I also don't have a vehicle, right?

He's just human things.

So I'm driving his Prius.

And I'm a country boy to the core.

I love country music.

There's nothing that makes me feel less just like strong than trying to blast country music in a Prius.

It just humbles me.

I'm like, I want to like roll windows down, like blast it.

And I'm like, I'm like, turn that down.

I'm like, you can't listen to this, right?

I say these things, and you're like, what the heck does this have to do with being human?

I just like, I took this, you know, this second to gather my thoughts, gather just these weeks.

I'm like, wow, these are just so much a part of the human experience.

They make me feel anxious sometimes.

They make me feel, you know, like in my head, like right, the mustache thing.

I'm like, I, like in my own head, I'm like, I look awful.

Don't look at myself.

I'm just like doubting who I am as a human being, right?

Like everyone up here has probably looked in the mirror at some point and be like, what's happening?

What's happening with this, everything I'm doing?

Right?

We're so just naturally human.

We go day to day.

We have all these things, right?

They're a part of our flaws.

They're part of the character that we are.

And more importantly, though, it shows how truly unique we are.

But we're also going to dig into kind of some of how those things have progressed since the beginning of our creation and what we were actually supposed to be made as.

And so today, I want to talk about two parts of our humanity.

As a part of the Thread series, we've been going back to the beginning and looking at God's world created.

And a huge part of that beginning is this idea of tension.

I'm going to use that word hopefully a lot about this tension.

And it's this tension of being created as God's image, being the bearers of that image, and then also being created from and connected to the earth, the dust that we came from.

And so we're going to dig into this.

We're going to dig into Genesis 1.

We're going to be there for most of this day.

So Genesis 1, we're going to start in verses 26.

I'm going to go to the next slide.

We'll have it up here.

So 26 through 31, and then it's chapter 2, verses 4 through 7, and then verse 15 if you guys want to write that down.

Actually, I don't think I need this.

This does not help.

I don't know why I'm doing that.

So verse 26 in chapter 1, it says, Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image and our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

So God created mankind in his own image.

In the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number.

Fill the earth and subdue it.

Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.

Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it.

They will be yours for food.

And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground, everything that has breath of life in it, I give every green plant for food.

And it was so.

God saw all he made and it was very good.

And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day.

Let's jump to verse four, it will be on the next slide.

This is the account of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

Now no shrub had yet appeared on earth and no plant had yet sprung, for the Lord God had not sent rain on earth and there was no one to work the ground.

But streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.

And the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

And the man became a living being.

And then we'll just jump down to verse 15 and we'll end.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it.

This is awesome.

This is our creation.

This is the start of us.

All of us start from this moment.

The Bible has always been clear about our creation.

The call to be image bearers who produce fruit is a high calling that can inspire, that we should be excited to take as a challenge, but also, talking about us becoming fully human, it also can be discouraging, can be overwhelming.

The space between bearing the very image of God and the reality of our lives as humans can be great.

But even in these opening chapters, we are given direction for closing that gap.

Walking with God with the intimacy He desires.

Living in this tension and striving after a God who would and has done anything to be close to us is at the heart of becoming fully human.

So I want to talk about this again like I did.

I call them first account and second account.

The first account of what we were made for and the second account of how we were made.

They show truly how we are human in everything we do.

This first account is the idea of being created in the image of God.

This first account is the fact that we were created by the Creator.

We were created from a divine being.

I love it.

Back in the verse it says, I created mankind in my own image.

It's a weird thought because I think about this week.

I think about how many flaws I have.

We are divine in nature.

God created us to be like Him.

He created us to have this connection to the divinity.

There's that part of us that is supposed to be like this.

We are supposed to be a reflection of the Creator, the divine.

We are created to be relational and above all to have a relationship with God.

That's the first thought.

That was God's intention.

He wanted someone, a being to be connected with.

Something that was special.

I love dogs.

I love dogs.

They're awesome.

God can't create with the same connection with a dog that He can with us.

Dogs are so good.

That's the connection we want to have with pets of any kind.

God is like, no, you guys are the ones that created.

You're the special reason that this earth goes around.

I want to have this relationship with you.

The second part of that is the beauty of the relationship is that we had to come from what was created.

The second account is the total opposite.

Instead of just being formed from the heavens above, when He spoke the world to existence, He spoke it and it happened.

It wasn't just that with humanity.

He created us from something.

He created us from dust.

He created us from the earth.

That is the meaning of Adam.

Adam means to be from dust.

We are breathed into by God.

There's this part.

We're supposed to be super divine.

We're supposed to be straight from the Creator.

That's how we were made.

We're very earthly in everything we do.

That's the cool part.

That's the reason we have the opportunity to be the bears of this world.

That's why God calls us to be the ones who take care of the animals, to take care of the water, to take care of the land.

We are the stewards of this earth.

I think it's because we were the ones who were created from this earth and not just from God's statements, from God's words.

We're going to jump into three ideas about what this looks like and an idea of closing the gap.

Closing this gap between the human side, the earth side, which is faulty, where we sin a lot, and then the divine side.

How we're trying to close this gap.

That's how we're continually trying to do in our idea of becoming human.

This first idea is to dig more into the image and likeness of God.

This will be on the next slide.

Created in the image and likeness of God.

There's two parts here.

Let's look at this image part first.

Think about image.

This idea of image is not even just from a spiritual aspect, from a social aspect.

It's maybe the most important thing that we look at in our culture.

What image do you have?

There are people in this world that get paid way more money than I'll ever make my entire life just to make someone look good on Instagram, in the papers.

There's PR teams that devise these pictures, these events, these articles just for us to have a good image.

Image is so important for everything we do.

But the issue is, whose image are we trying to enhance?

It's ours.

The image that we think about, once again, talk about my face, my beard.

I want to enhance my image.

I want to look rugged.

Whatever in my mind makes me look good.

What do I think I look the best at?

It's my image.

I want to enhance myself.

We do that with everything we do.

It's the clothes we buy.

It's what we put on a social media app.

It's the way we talk.

It's the way we interact with people.

It's the image we bring.

We want to look good.

The bridge between that and the image God tried to create in us isn't that far.

God really cares about our image.

He truly cares about our image.

But the difference here is God didn't create us to have an image that tries to enhance ourselves.

We're trying to enhance God's image in everything we do.

That's the divine part.

We're supposed to enhance God's image in everything we do.

I think of one of my favorite movies when I was growing up.

Two weeks ago, Jaron was showing it to Jordan and Madison.

It's The Lion King.

I love The Lion King.

It's one of my favorite movies of all time.

I think about that scene when Simba finds Rafiki again and he's looking in the water.

He's like, I see a loser.

I see someone who isn't fit to be king.

He's like, no, you're looking at it wrong.

You're looking at the image wrong.

What do you see?

I think we do that with God.

If we were to put ourselves in the same text of that movie but within a spiritual context, we look into the reflecting water and God's like, what do you see?

I see someone who is insecure.

I see someone who isn't good enough at this.

I see someone who is scared.

Or whatever it is.

Or I see someone who's like, I'm so awesome, I'm great.

Whatever side of the spectrum you fall on, God with his proverbial sticks smacks you.

What do you see?

I see that you created me.

That's what we should be.

That's the refocus.

We should reflect God.

We should reflect what he is.

And that jumps to the likeness.

That's why image and likeness are so tied together.

Because if we think about that first part, if we can try to put our minds in the divinity side, trying to reflect to God, this likeness part is super essential.

When people see us, how we behave, how we love, we are showing them the likeness of God.

Like when you see someone who looks just like someone you know, this is another problem.

When Ryan first came out, Ryan's a fixture of this lesson.

He's new, so it's a good part.

First time he came out, everyone came up to me like, we found someone that just looks like you.

He's like you in everything.

It's cool because it's these ideas.

Ryan's a big fisherman.

We have a lot of ties, similar connections.

The cool part was everyone around us knew that connection would be easy.

We'd be like, oh yeah, you guys are two peas in a pod.

But we want to connect that.

We want to connect likeness because we're like, hey, this is what that's tied to.

I can make connections.

They're good.

You want to have good likeness about you.

You want to be known for something.

We've been tasked with this monumental expectation that when people see us, what God wanted is that we also see, they see him.

When they see us, they should also be seeing him.

It's a great expectation, but it's also an amazing privilege.

God believes, this is the reason we were created.

If he didn't believe that you could be an image of him, I don't think he would have created us at all.

But he knew that, he believed that you can reflect his image and show his likeness in the world that he created.

While we're digging through thread, we're always going to go back to Jesus because Jesus is the reason that we're doing all this.

Jesus is that perfect man.

He fulfilled this idea.

It took thousands of years to be like the Israelites and just humanity couldn't get it right and to a point we also can't get it right a lot of times.

That's why we have Jesus.

We know what it looks like to be the exact likeness of God in human form.

It's like, this is a snapshot of what it should look like.

That's what it should be.

I don't have these up here on a slide, but Colossians 1, 1-15, Hebrews 1-3 are great scriptures of looking at how Jesus is the exact fulfillment of the likeness of God.

But there's the other part.

We are not Jesus.

None of us are Jesus.

We fall short of the divine.

The dirt part.

We were created from the dirt and we were the ones who fell short of the glory of God.

You can think of Romans 6-23.

You can think of Romans 3-23 about that.

So I have a couple of questions on this next slide here.

Some thought process for this first point.

When you think about the created and the image and the likeness of God, when people see you, what image of God are you projecting?

When people see you, what image of God are you projecting?

That's a humbling fact.

No matter the humanistic part of us, that we sin, we fall short, when we interact with people, and especially if they know that we want to follow God, that we're disciples, they're going to attach God to whatever you do.

That's been a very humbling fact for me in my life.

I've shared with a few of you, but when I made Jesus Lord, the hardest part of making Jesus Lord was my family.

Everyone here could probably tie you like, yeah, family's tough.

It's messy, it's muddy, it's complicated.

I had such a hard time for some reason truly making Jesus Lord and being His likeness with my family.

Whenever my parents would say something, I act like a 17-year-old out of anger still.

I'm like, why did I do that?

Three, four months ago, my mom sent me something and I just responded in a snotty way.

I was so 15-year-old.

She got on me and I had to apologize.

I was like, I'm so sorry.

My parents know that I changed my life for God.

So everything I do, however small, to an Instagram message, to the direction I put my life in, they're going to see God in that.

They're going to attach who God is to what I'm doing.

Whether that's fair or not.

That's just how we are as people.

We look at images.

That's how we create assumptions.

That's how we create thoughts, processes.

We look at the image.

So what kind of image are you projecting God as?

And if they could only see you, what would they think God is like?

Going off that same statement, do they think He's loving?

Do they think He cares about people?

Do they think He's selfish?

Do they think He's a power-hungry God?

We're going to be the ones who project that to a lot of people in our lives.

I want to go back to this statement.

It's a great expectation, but it's also a great privilege.

It's a great expectation.

It can feel daunting.

I'm like, I'm messed up.

But also, what a great privilege.

I love superheroes.

Spiderman has probably the biggest one-liner.

With great power comes great responsibility.

And God has given us this earth to be stewards of.

So we also should be responsible for it in every way.

So let's go on.

Let's go to number two here.

Talk about purpose.

We were created with purpose.

I love this part.

This is one of the things that, just from a sidebar, truly made me become a disciple.

It made me go, I'm going to live my life every day because I know my purpose.

I felt so concrete in who I was.

We have also been created with a purpose on purpose.

This is cool.

You can look back in your notes.

This is actually the last lesson I did on Thread, which was talking about the parable of the tenants and our story and how important our story is in the fabric of the story of the Bible.

God created us on purpose.

In both accounts, in the first and the second, we're given a purpose.

We're just not here randomly or for nothing in order to even figure out our purpose on our own.

It's right here in chapter one and two.

I go around on campus and I share my faith.

Me and Toby talked about this last week.

A lot of kids have this question.

What am I here for?

What's my purpose?

We were just talking through it and I didn't even connect it straight to Genesis 1 and 2 yet because I hadn't digged into this lesson just yet, but it was such a cool connection.

It was like God being like, hey, when people share, this is the answer.

This is exactly what our purpose is here for.

You don't have to read very far.

In the first account, it says, Be fruitful and multiply.

Fill the earth and rule it, like how God would, not how we would rule it.

And in the second account, we are to work and keep.

Watch over the garden we've been placed in.

That's awesome.

It's so specific.

The cool part is I'm going to look at some purposeful practicalities of how we should do it.

So let's dig into that.

What does this practically look like?

The idea of bearing fruit, it's all over the Bible, but even when I was young, I'm like, so what, am I supposed to be a gardener for my life?

Am I just raising strawberries until the day I die?

Is that what God wants from me?

No, that's not what fruit means.

But bearing fruit, producing good God things.

It's simple.

They look like outward things that can be daunting, but do you talk about your faith to people?

Do people want to come out to church because you've been a good steward?

Have you been a good image of God?

That's a very clear idea of what fruit looks like in your life.

Dominic, I appreciate you sharing for a contribution today.

Me and Jaron talked about this.

If you're someone who produces a sacrificial life, a disciplined life, and give financially, that's producing fruit.

As someone who produces fruit in their life, it's explicit.

You think about how you share your time.

That's a big one for me.

I'm naturally prideful.

I'm naturally selfish.

Am I someone who I can look at my week and be like, there's more time where I'm probably serving than I'm giving to myself?

That's good.

In our day and age, it's all about me.

It's about my free time, my me time.

I said that one way too much in Disciple Time.

I'm like, I need me time.

Then my disciple was like, you're going to get it.

I'm like, I'm sorry.

I'm simple.

But they're specific.

We should be serving.

We should be giving in everything.

Our finances, our time, our energy.

We should be someone who shares our life with others because we want them to know God.

It's specific.

I think there's something cool.

I've been talking a lot about spiritual discipline on campus and how the first time you start something, it should look kind of weak.

I've been talking a lot about basketball because that's how I connect things.

I'm a sports guy.

I remember the first time I did a one-on-one workout with this guy's name.

It was Jordan Long.

He's a great basketball player.

I had no right being trained by him.

Not even close to the athleticism or wisdom that he had.

I had to learn how to do jump rope in 7th grade.

That was embarrassing.

It was a July day out in the sun.

I'm trying.

I'm hitting.

I'm falling.

We were 15 minutes in.

He goes, are you okay?

I'm like, no.

I am not okay.

This is what basketball is?

I don't want it.

I was so weak.

I was physically so weak.

Spiritually, I was also like that.

The first time I had to read the Bible for more than 5 minutes was gouging my eyes out.

I was like, people do this?

This is a lot.

I was spiritually weak.

It was a muscle I had not learned.

What does it look like to multiply?

We should multiply the things that we have and make them stronger.

No matter if you're the youngest person here, like Paul Stannett.

Or the oldest one here, Dugan.

You can produce fruit.

You can grow.

You can multiply.

That's something you can do no matter the age.

If you were praying for 45 minutes, you can make it an hour.

If you're doing an hour, make it an hour 15.

If that's not in the schedule, take a day.

Like your Saturday or something.

Take a special time.

We can all grow.

I love what we're doing with the sharing in our house churches.

It shouldn't be something that we do as just a big event.

We can multiply that.

It's like, hey, I love that.

How about we do that 2 weeks from now?

Jared doesn't have to put it on the schedule for us to share.

We should always be multiplying.

I think about these next ones.

You look at subduing.

That one's the emotional part I look at.

When you're looking at how I handled stuff with my family, there should be less chaos in our lives.

It's a clear way to see if you're producing what God wants you into your life.

If you have purpose.

Your purpose isn't to be someone who creates division.

We looked at this as well on Friday for our Debo.

We looked at one another unity.

We looked at what that looks like.

It's so important to fight for what's good for a group.

I think our generation, I think even 3 plus generations haven't had a big goal of doing that.

You think of World War II.

You think of these wars.

Don't think we need a war to be unified.

I'm not saying that.

There were some that unified people.

There's these moments in time where it doesn't matter the division, what we disagree with.

We're going to be unified.

There shouldn't be as much chaos.

We shouldn't divide.

We shouldn't fight each other.

We should be subduing some of the sinful emotions or the sinful feelings that our heart has for the betterment of a group.

That sounds weird because that's so countercultural to what we're living.

I would say that at school and everyone would be like, you're a loser.

Why would you think that?

That's hard because we have not taught that for a long time.

But it is so important.

There are times where you're going to disagree with someone.

You're not going to like maybe what I say up here.

You could be like, I disagree with what Josh said.

Or I'm going to disagree with what Jaron said.

Sometimes, and there's wisdom in the statement, but sometimes there's character, there's high character in fighting for what's better for the church than fighting for what's right for you.

That's a clear thing in your heart that you have purpose of doing.

I can just put working with multiplying.

I don't think I have to hit that one anymore.

And the last one, just keep watch.

This is the idea of being protectors of this earth.

We should be protecting this earth in everything we do.

We have a great family here.

I would ask you, do you know how everyone, not maybe everyone, but the people that are close to your house, church, your friends, are you protecting them?

Are you watching out over their heart, who they are, loving them in every way that you can?

That's a very clear thing we can do on a day-to-day basis.

We can love, we can protect, and we can fight for our brothers and sisters in the kingdom of God no matter the circumstances.

That is something so clear that we have a purpose in doing.

So kind of jumping off this, tying it back to the image and likeness, what are people seeing you produce in the world?

Are you more like the first account?

Do people look at the purpose that you have and it's like that man is a man of God or that woman is a woman of God?

Can that be clearly seen by the purpose that you have?

Or is it something that you would have to specifically tell them?

Like, oh, no, no, no, I'm a Christian.

Well, your life maybe don't reflect that, right?

That's humbling.

I've had that told to me before.

And that truly is one of the reasons I study the Bible because someone's like, I don't think you're a man of God.

And I was like, that hurt, right?

And I had to be really reflective.

And I had to see that my purpose up to that point in my life was not one that was for God.

And I think we should all be reflecting.

Are we someone that has goodness, has love, who make every effort to find peace, kindness, and grace in those that we love?

And we're going to end with this third one, it's intimacy.

I love this one, intimacy.

So we live in this tension between the divine and the dirt.

Our busy brains might be tempted to strive after perfection and to be the most fruitful, right?

Hardworking humans that the world has ever seen, right?

Get as close to the divine as possible, right?

All these things I've said, they're very much work things, right?

Where it's like, okay, well, Josh has told me, so I just have to go produce fruit.

Everyone I know in my life has to come to church and I have to be this great steward to everyone in this room and I have to protect them.

Those things are true, but if they come from just this idea of like, I'm going to get to the divine, you will never get there.

And that's why this third part is like the glue to all of it.

It's intimacy.

It's not the way that we deal with tension.

It's the way of us trying to work it out.

In this account, in the Bible, God has shown us how to live within the dirt and the divine.

The answer is within intimacy.

So how do we achieve this image, this intent, this purpose?

The cool part is, the idea of thread is going to answer that within like a three-year time span, so you should be here for the next three years and you'll find out.

But the bigger idea of it is, the whole rest of the story, the Bible, is God's relentless effort to restore intimacy that we will see in our lives every day.

I did not write that right in my notes.

And we're going to look at that next week as well, about the idea of when we struggle with sin.

But go back to the statement I said about the image and likeness of God.

Who is the image and likeness of God?

It's Jesus, right?

The whole story of the Bible from the beginning of time, like I said, next week we're going to look at the actual sin part, how we fall from the graces of God, how we fall into the dirt.

But from that moment, God has been trying to restore that intimacy.

It's what the Bible is about, right?

Most of the New Testament is how we mess up this idea of intimacy, how we're trying to do it ourselves, how we look at the Bible in our own sinful ways and we try to make it more useful to how we think about it.

We look at how we interact with people and we want to do it our way.

Intimacy is such a core part, the Bible will go through, the whole story of the Bible is all about intimacy.

And this idea, I love this, if we don't have this relationship with God, intimacy equals relationship, right?

That's such a huge part, intimacy equals relationship.

If we do not have this relationship with God, we are not living up to our full human potential.

This intimacy, this relationship, it's the only thing that can connect you to the image and likeness of God.

And the cool part, I talked a little bit about the dog thing, there's no other creature that has this potential.

We were specifically made to have this potential.

And so as we end here and we think about this idea of becoming fully human, examine your walk with God, examine what it looks like.

I think that should be on the next slide, I think it's the last one.

You should examine your walk with God.

This first part, I thought about this.

Do you understand intimacy?

It's a weird word.

I'm still single, so I think I got intimacy, and I still feel like a 16-year-old boy.

Intimacy, that sounds too grown up.

But there's an intimacy, there's a deepness, there's a love, a connection.

It's kind of hard to describe in human emotions.

It's something you feel.

It's something that connects you.

It's something that makes it truly personal.

Think about it.

If you're married, your husband or your wife, there's something about the way you love them that maybe you can't explain, but you feel it.

It's tied, it's a connection to who you are.

We should have that same intimacy with God.

Do you understand it?

Do you understand intimacy?

And then, if you think about that, you reflect on that, has your intimacy been damaged?

I'll go back to the idea of husband and wife.

If your intimacy's been damaged, you work on it.

If you didn't work on it, you wouldn't be married anymore.

The sad part is, about the dirt, that's what the world does.

You lose that intimacy, it's like, oh, we'll just get divorced.

You separate yourself from God.

You separate yourself from this person because you don't want to work on it.

Obviously, there's deeper things in that.

But, when it comes to that relationship with God, so often, I think, when we look at the spiritual, so many people just divorce themselves from God.

God hurt me.

The church hurt me.

Somebody showed me a likeness that I didn't like, so obviously, it's been damaged, I can't restore it.

We break that full potential.

We will never get there.

You cap yourself off at 30%, 40%, or whatever, probably lower than that, like 15%.

All those have been damaged.

It's part of the dirt.

It's part of the sin.

It's part of the mess.

We should be reflecting on that.

There is a way to restore it.

It's intimacy.

It's digging back into it.

Think about it.

Is there distance?

How far are you away from God?

And so, as we think about the way that we were created, the purpose that we have, and the way that we were molded, God still saw us and all the things that we could be weak in.

He saw the parts that we were made from dust, and He wanted to create us anyway.

He wanted to create us with this beautiful purpose to grow close to Him, to have His image, to have His likeness, to have His purpose, and to do it with a deep intimacy.

And so, with that, that's the end of our thread lesson.

I'll pray us out, and after that, I don't think there is an ending song or anything.

After I pray, go get your kids, and church will be dismissed, right?

Dear God, I am so grateful that I am a human.

I am so grateful that I am fully human.

I am part divine.

I am part made from Your creation.

I am also made from this dirt.

I am weak.

My back hurts.

My knees hurt.

I have fears.

I have doubts.

I mess up.

I'm flawed by my initial self, but You created us with a deeper purpose to fulfill us, God.

I'm so grateful that we get to look at that.

We get to look at what it means to be Your image, to be Your bear, to go out into this world, to show people what it looks like to be like God, to grow close to God, to have a true purpose in this life.

God, we all have probably asked ourselves at some point, what am I doing here?

What's my purpose?

You are our purpose.

You've given us intentionality.

We were not made by mistake.

We were not made to figure it out on our own.

You gave us clear intent of who we should be and why we should be here, God.

And the last part, guys, pray that myself, everyone here can go back home and can be reflective on their intimacy with You, God, the deepness of it, the connection, why it's so important to have a deep love for You as deeper than anything that we've ever gone after before in our lives.

So grateful for You in everything You do.

In Your name I pray.

Amen.

Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast.

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