Made in His Image

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, guys, I'm excited to share God's word with you, and maybe some of you junior hires in the room are like, why am I not going to the gym right now?

[SPEAKER_00]: So you high schoolers are like, why are all these slightly smaller human beams in the way?

[SPEAKER_00]: We've got a word for both of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: High schoolers, set an example for the junior hires, worshiping gladly, welcoming them in, listening to the word intently,

[SPEAKER_00]: I've always found taking notes as a good way to stay engaged, and also bonus have something to share in small groups when the leader says, so what was a sermon about here, I don't know, taking notes as a good way to help that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Junior hires work for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't be intimidated by these bigger people, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: They're your older brothers and sisters.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are here to lead you, follow them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And also, here's another thing Junior hires.

[SPEAKER_00]: resist the urge to think this sermon only applies to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: The sermon applies to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: This message is for you as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is never a good reason delaying God's working in our hearts and lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be together for the next three weeks because we want to address an issue that touches your age group and even to this generation more than most and that is the issue of identity.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in a different way, if you and I were in a one on one conversation, how would you answer this question?

[SPEAKER_00]: Who are you?

[SPEAKER_00]: How would you answer that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Think about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I wonder what some of the answers would be if I took a survey of the room where there'd be some common themes.

[SPEAKER_00]: You'll probably start with your name, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Who, who are you?

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say, well, my name is Dave.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then going after that, I wonder what you guys would say.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it would be your age or your grade.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it'd be your school.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you describe yourself according to the things that you like to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm really in a sports, I'm really in a theater.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really love playing video games.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have this job.

[SPEAKER_00]: You might also describe yourself according to who you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe who you're related to, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I too older brother, so at school I wouldn't you.

[SPEAKER_00]: My name's Gabe, I'm Nate's little brother.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Drew's older brother.

[SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Knott, older brother.

[SPEAKER_00]: Drew's little brother.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Dan and Debbie's youngest son.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was attached to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, any of these answers that you guys would give to that question maybe true, but are they really the deepest core, the very center of who you are?

[SPEAKER_00]: If you peel back all the layers, what is at the core of who you are?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe that if you get the answer to this question wrong, you will get everything wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is because whether you realize it or not, every decision you make can be traced back to your identity to who you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: Andy's root and tooth and share of cowboy toy, what is your identity?

[SPEAKER_00]: He would tell you, he's a Andy's favorite toy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's the number one guy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's the ring leader.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gets taken everywhere, even when the other toys are left behind.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's Andy's special toy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He even gets

[SPEAKER_00]: And Andy's bed often, he's got a special shot, spot on the shelf, he's the chief toy, but if you ever seen the movie, you know, all of his skits up and did when a new toy arrives, was like here, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And now you realize the same, there's not room for two sheriffs in this town.

[SPEAKER_00]: It makes Woody jealous and insecure, not just because his place is taken,

[SPEAKER_00]: It makes him jealous and insecure because his identity is found in being Andy's favorite toy.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now all of a sudden something that disrupts, who he believes he is, affects everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: Change is his whole perspective.

[SPEAKER_00]: It changes how he acts, how he reacts, what he assumes of others.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now this is an illustration about a movie that's a cartoon from 1995 before an

[SPEAKER_00]: But the concept of this thought, the identity is foundational.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to get things wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to get everything wrong if we don't get this right.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what you guys will learn as you study and learn more in the Christian life is that the answer to most questions, the foundation of most knowledge is not us, it's God, begins with God.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is certainly true when we're trying to answer this question.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't have a Bible, we do have some extras as a Bible card back there.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can follow along on your phone if you need, although I recommend you put on an airplane mode if it was really easy to get distracted.

[SPEAKER_00]: Genesis 1, I trust you can all find it's page number one of your Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: Try the most red page because you start a Bible reading plan and you make it through like the first few pages and then it can go downhill from there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully not, but try to be a realist.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look at verse one, in the beginning, God, in the beginning, God, in the beginning, when time did not exist, when there was nothing, there was God.

[SPEAKER_00]: God always was and God always will be.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he demonstrates his supreme power and authority in creating all things in the universe and everything that fills it.

[SPEAKER_00]: God says, let there be light.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how he does at verse three.

[SPEAKER_00]: And where we find there was light.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you see this pattern over and over again.

[SPEAKER_00]: God says, let there be an atmosphere, an ocean, and land and trees and the moon and the stars and the birds and the beasts and all kinds of living creatures.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let there be is always followed by and it was.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you wish you had this kind of authority when it came to your siblings.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, let there be silence in my room.

[SPEAKER_00]: Stop talking, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let there be me riding the shotgun and you sitting in the back seat.

[SPEAKER_00]: You might even get your siblings to follow along with some of your commands.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe your bribery, or threatening.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that was my brother's, yeah, there's just threatening.

[SPEAKER_00]: They might go so far, but when your parents come in, they overstepped and set order to the home, it's good.

[SPEAKER_00]: But on my gosh, there's no distraction between what God commands and what comes to pass.

[SPEAKER_00]: Between what God commands and what God does because there's no forces or powers or beings that are greater than God.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing that can stop what God sets out to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as you read the first chapter in Genesis there's this growing anticipation of the things that God is creating.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as you read it you're meant to be asking the question, what's what's the end of creation?

[SPEAKER_00]: What's the final accomplishment that God creates?

[SPEAKER_00]: We find that in verse 26, look there with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Chapter 1 verse 26, then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: So God created man in his own image and the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.

[SPEAKER_00]: God's crown jewel, his final project, his Magnum Opus, his greatest display of how amazing and powerful and in control he is, is on display as he creates human beings.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everything that God creates, he says it is good, but in verse 31, when he reflects on the creation of humans, he says, it is very good.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is a unique aspect.

[SPEAKER_00]: in God creating us that's special.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the purpose of this series is to address God's design for humanity, and it begins with identity.

[SPEAKER_00]: The deepest identity that we have is that we are human beings, made in his image.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are made in his image, if you take notes, that's the title of the sermon, and you may have noticed that male and female are both made in his image.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we're going to cover in the next two weeks.

[SPEAKER_00]: But tonight what I want to drive home to you is that you, student, are made in God's image.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that means you are created for three things.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are created to know God.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are created to love God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you are created to serve God.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to go through each of those one at a time.

[SPEAKER_00]: First, everyone puts your fingers on your temples like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are created to know God, okay, now put him right here.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are created to love God.

[SPEAKER_00]: I put him like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are created to serve God, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: So know, love, serve, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: Those are three categories we're gonna be thinking about tonight.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's start with number one.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are created to know God, who the era has played the board game clue, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, good number.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was a little worried because like I'm starting to get to the point where some of the games that I played you guys had never heard of, I was a little fearful of that for toy story.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thankfully there's still some relevance.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you haven't played it, close a board game where you ask questions and you're trying to solve a murder case.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the goal is to investigate thoroughly enough throughout the game by asking good questions and taking good notes that you can get to a spot where you have a confident, a guess and accurate guess of who the killer is, of where the murder was committed and how they did it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And along the way, you're accumulating little bits of information that are trying to give a good picture of who this culprit is and how they did it.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you played with my brothers and I, you didn't take very good notes and you always bank on it being curl mustard with a lead pipe because it just sounded the most like insane way to kill someone.

[SPEAKER_00]: We always love that guy.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you play the game the correct way, you're supposed to learn more and more about the truth and then get to a conclusion that you can be confident about.

[SPEAKER_00]: When God created the world, he did so in such a way that displays who he is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul summarizes this in Romans chapter 1 verse 19 for what can be known about God is made plain to us because God has shown it to us.

Romans 1:19

[SPEAKER_00]: God's invisible attributes namely his eternal power and his divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

[SPEAKER_00]: and science, and in math class, I know some of you hate those classes.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in those classes, you are studying theories and processes, and you realize that the God who created all things is a God of order.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is a God, not of chaos, but of order.

[SPEAKER_00]: As you learn in your art and music classes, some of you hate those classes, you understand that God is a God of beauty.

[SPEAKER_00]: He creates beautiful things because he is beautiful.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can even think about eating your favorite meal, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: For me, it's sitting down, the giant steak was like butter on top of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Over mashed potatoes, amazing roasted vegetables.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ice cream definitely coming for dessert.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is no natural reason that your taste buds should give you delight.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's no reason for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: God gave you taste buds so that you might savor and experience the pleasures of this world and think God made me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God is a God of delight.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why he placed those in your mouth.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are always that God is communicating to us who He is, pauses His characters on display and all of creation.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of creation everywhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see the fingerprints of God in the created world.

[SPEAKER_00]: But unlike Clube, God doesn't just leave us to deduce and to make a good guess of who we think he is.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't just speculate about him, because he's revealed the mystery and the envelope of his word.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when we solve it, it's not a solving a murder case like in the game Clube, it's understanding that God who loves us, who's created us, that we might know him and love him.

[SPEAKER_00]: a few Sundays ago, Daniel, Eckburg, preaching, extant sermon at Redeemer, on John 14, if you haven't listened to it, make sure to listen to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things he reminded us was how much God longs for us to get to know him, to learn about who he is, to spend time with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: God loves us, and he wants us to know how much he loves us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he communicates this nowhere more clearly

[SPEAKER_00]: You hear from us over and over again for good reason how important it is to carve out time regularly, daily, that you would look at this book and reflect on your thoughts through prayer, back to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you were to go all the way through Redeemer students, sixth grade all the way through graduating, and this was the only thing that you walked out the door with.

[SPEAKER_00]: The regular discipline of reading your Bible and praying, I would be an overjoyed youth pastor.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because what that tells me is, I can be confident that your soul will be fed no matter where you go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because you will be drinking from the source and engaging in that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's that important.

[SPEAKER_00]: You may not feel the significance of this yet, especially if you're a sixth grader, seventh grader, eighth grader, ninth grader, maybe you're even an upperclassman.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't feel the significance of this yet, but as you get older, you're going to hear more ideas and theories about humans and the world and the truth and you're going to feel more pressure to compromise the things that maybe one day you said you believe, but now maybe you're not so sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to feel pulled in all these different directions by your own desires, by the world around you, by Satan himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're not anchored to this word, you are going to be dragged every witchcraft.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want more for you than that.

[SPEAKER_00]: God made you for more.

[SPEAKER_00]: He made you in his image that you might know him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He also made you in his image that you might love him.

[SPEAKER_00]: to love God.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're made in his image to love God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Last time we were together was December 17th.

[SPEAKER_00]: My son, as E.K.

[SPEAKER_00]: All, Z was eight days old.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's just passed a month, last Friday.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can I show a couple more pictures?

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, do we have the first picture?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there we are.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the one, I just changed his diaper.

[SPEAKER_00]: Probably pooped right before that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, wait, leave it on that one.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's okay, okay, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine, that

[SPEAKER_00]: say, huh?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm glad you love babies, but you're not describing your baby.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I describe Zika at way, it would be clear that I know nothing about it, and you can probably take it down, it's probably getting distracted.

[SPEAKER_00]: The truth is that there are many people in this world who say they love God and know nothing about Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the problem with this is they are fabricating in their brains a God of their own invention.

[SPEAKER_00]: And a God of our own invention tends to look a lot like us.

[SPEAKER_00]: It also means it can't save us.

[SPEAKER_00]: The love has to begin with knowledge.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to know this word to know what God is really like.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it can't end there.

[SPEAKER_00]: You, student, are not designed just to know information about God.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are designed to deeply and intimately know him.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are designed to love him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to show you this in Genesis chapter two.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you can probably one page in your Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not moving too much tonight.

[SPEAKER_00]: Good guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully, don't lose any of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Genesis chapter two, verse seven, we're gonna look at the way God created man.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and he breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember how God created everything else?

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember he said, let their be and his words accomplished the work that he intended.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why would he change the pattern here?

[SPEAKER_00]: Our God's words, not capable of creating a human the same way he created the stars.

[SPEAKER_00]: Of course they are.

[SPEAKER_00]: God changes his pattern here because he wants to communicate something to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something very significant.

[SPEAKER_00]: The picture here is God's forming man, just the same way the word is used to describe a powder whose forms clay on a wheel.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you've ever seen that process happen, it is a, it is not a distant process.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is a near-process.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's done with precision, with care, with skill, with intentionality, with a level of intimacy.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are some of you here tonight who know about God, but you love other things more than you love God.

[SPEAKER_00]: The thing that you hold the Titist and nearest to you is not God, but it's something that He has created.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you may have entered a dating relationship, hoping to find the love of your heart is longing for.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're still in the thought process of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're desiring that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're hoping that it happens.

[SPEAKER_00]: What has led to is compromises it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You never imagined.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hurt that you never anticipated.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're operating it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if this is the case with this ordered love, the affections of your heart are out of order.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the reality is, until someone gets this idea right, until those loves are straightened out in their proper order, they will always be a taker and never a giver.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what I mean by that.

[SPEAKER_00]: That person will approach every relationship in their life, hoping that it gives something to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hoping that they might be able to take something from it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You grumble at your parents because you want more freedom.

[SPEAKER_00]: You demean your siblings because you want more privacy.

[SPEAKER_00]: You lost after a girl or a boy because you want attention or affection.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is really happening here is that you don't understand your identity.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were made in God's image to know Him and to love Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were created to love God because your heart does not love God as it ought.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are trying to fill that void in your heart with something else.

[SPEAKER_00]: heard it said that there's a God-sized hole in your heart and we're trying to fill it with worldly things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of those things aren't inherently sinful.

[SPEAKER_00]: Many of them are not, but any of them become sinful when they take the place in our heart that belongs to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you settle this identity part, you are made in God's image.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you are first made to love God, you will actually be free to be a giver in all of your relationships and not a taker.

[SPEAKER_00]: You will have the freedom, not to be so concerned about yourself and what your desire and what your interested in, but interested in others, you know why because you've been filled up from the real source of love, that is God, that is what your soul was made for student.

[SPEAKER_00]: Before we move to our last point, let me know one more thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: When man is made, does he climb up from the ground and reach for the sky and call out God?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm over here?

[SPEAKER_00]: No, of course not.

[SPEAKER_00]: What we see very clearly is passages that God initiates.

[SPEAKER_00]: God condescends.

[SPEAKER_00]: He makes himself near.

[SPEAKER_00]: He creates and then he breathes life.

[SPEAKER_00]: and then the life comes from that.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is the first cause.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the same pattern in Ephesians 2, the passage I read before I began preaching.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Apostle John tells us in one of his letters that we love because he first love us.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's where it comes from.

[SPEAKER_00]: We react to what God does.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are made to know God.

[SPEAKER_00]: to love God in finally, number three, to serve God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Go ahead and flip back to Genesis chapter one.

[SPEAKER_00]: David Livingston was a missionary to Africa in the 1800s.

[SPEAKER_00]: He endured a lot of hardships during his life, died at age 60 in African wilderness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Before he died, he gave an address to students that Cambridge University, many of which are probably not much older than you are, here tonight.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he shared these words.

[SPEAKER_00]: For my own part, I've never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such a position.

[SPEAKER_00]: People talk of sacrifice I've made and spending so much of my life in Africa,

[SPEAKER_00]: away from such a thought, it is emphatically no sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_00]: Say, rather, it is a privilege, anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then with a little letting go of the conveniences of this life, it may make us pause.

[SPEAKER_00]: It may cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink, but let this be only for a moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of these are knocking when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He concludes a statement with this, I never made a sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_00]: How can a man endure such trials as this and yet come out with an attitude like that?

[SPEAKER_00]: You may be see the same pattern in the Bible or Paul, where he reflects on all of the ways that he should have and nearly dodged.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of the burdens that he feels and his experiencing daily.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, this is nothing compared to glory that we will one day see.

[SPEAKER_00]: How do you get there?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because he understands his identity is made in God's image and therefore he's created to serve God.

[SPEAKER_00]: First John, five says that God's commandments are not burdened some to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Genesis 1 shows that we are designed for service to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look at verse 28 with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: and God blessed them, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: He just created man and woman and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: God tells the man and woman, here's what you are to pursue.

[SPEAKER_00]: Get married and have a family.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I know some of you are thinking, I'm 12, boys are gross, keep thinking that.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's good for now.

[SPEAKER_00]: The normal pattern those in time for men and women and Mary and bear children.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the purpose is that we might exercise the second portion of this verse, which is to have dominion over the earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are created, Stephen, that you might serve God in working to the best ability of whatever the Lord puts in front of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: For the majority of you in this room right now,

[SPEAKER_00]: The number one thing is school, believe it or not.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were created to do the very best you can do in school.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is an offering that you bring to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: You work to serve God by doing the best you can in your studies.

[SPEAKER_00]: Before long, maybe some of you are even here now, at transitions to a job where one day your responsibility before the Lord is to do the very best you can do at your job.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not to do the least required amount of work and hope you get the best results, but the other way around.

[SPEAKER_00]: To do the most you absolutely can do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Really practically that will set you very far ahead of most of your peers in the workforce.

[SPEAKER_00]: But even more than that, this is something that we honor God with.

[SPEAKER_00]: We take dominion over the earth subduing the earth in very ordinary normal things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, that term can sound like really macho.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe even arrogant, take dominion.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, what is this like a game?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like what?

[SPEAKER_00]: What it really means is to understand that God has placed humanity in the world to represent him to all creation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, remember, go back to the creation order.

[SPEAKER_00]: God creates all of the things in this world.

[SPEAKER_00]: He puts man at the end.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the punctuation mark.

[SPEAKER_00]: and man's responsibility is to rule to be a good steward and to be an accurate representation of who God is to the rest of the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: We do that by bringing order to a world that is chaotic.

[SPEAKER_00]: But as many of you know, the first man at him, first man at him, I almost said at him, and even makes those up.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first man in woman at him, any, they had this responsibility before them, but they failed in their task.

[SPEAKER_00]: Though they knew by seeing God's Word and His world and hearing His voice audibly, they insisted on their own desires, on their own wisdom, on their own knowledge.

[SPEAKER_00]: Though they experienced God's love and intimate communion with Him, walking with Him daily and in part in here, imagine that.

[SPEAKER_00]: They instead treasure their own desires, their own affections.

[SPEAKER_00]: And instead of ruling over creation and subduing it, they allowed the serpent into the garden to deceive them and to rule over them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what we find in the first few pages of the Bible in the book of Genesis is God's amazing grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: That he doesn't destroy Adam and Eve.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even though he says, when you eat of this fruit, you will surely die.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord does that because He's a merciful God, and because He understands that there will be payment that comes later.

[SPEAKER_00]: He promises that through the descendants of the woman, one would come who overturns the deeds of the serpent, the one who knew God perfectly, who loved him with his whole heart and who served him unwaverly, even unto death.

[SPEAKER_00]: That man is Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: and he came into this world to save sinners into restore them into right relationship with their maker, student with your maker.

[SPEAKER_00]: He came to the fractured image of God that resides in all of us would be brought to total restoration that we would know him, love him, and serve him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now for all of those who look to him by faith and repent of their sins and believe in his name, this is done for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: As I close the sermon, you guys can bow your heads where you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to think about your head, your heart, and your hands.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have any motivation to serve God at all?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you love God?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you only love the things that God gives you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you desire to know God more?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you content with what little knowledge you have?

[SPEAKER_00]: If not, you are showing signs of spiritual deadness, student.

[SPEAKER_00]: Believe in Jesus, send His work, and you will find life in His name.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you have trusted in Christ, think again of those three categories and reflect on the one that you feel weakest in, that is so hard for you to get over the hump over the hurdle, pray that God would give you insight into what that is, and he would give you hatred over your simple tendencies and desire to grow in righteousness.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to do that for just a minute in silence.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think of those things, bring those out and prayer, ask for the Lord would reveal them, and then I will close us in prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: Father, we confess to you that we're so quickly confident and prideful in the knowledge that we may have received.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just like Avenue, we trust in what we can come up with in our own head.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, and we're negligent to know more of the God He's revealed Himself so clearly through His Word.

[SPEAKER_00]: God, and we confess,

[SPEAKER_00]: that our love's are so easily disordered, that the things of this world can have such a poll on us, can draw us so strongly, even when we know they're bad and wrong and not best for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, would you forgive us for our airing and strain hearts?

[SPEAKER_00]: Help us to see you as the supremely valuable, treasurable joyful God that you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: and Lord, we can fast how quickly we are to pass up an opportunity to serve you, to assume someone else is going to do it, or to be lazy in the ways that you have called us, to take dominion in this world, to serve as your ambassador in our school, in our family, at our workplace, on our sports team, Lord, forgive us, for pricing, comfort, and our own reputation more than yours.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord and thank you that you offer mercy, forgiveness, and grace to all those who look to you by faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: that though our sins make our souls red as scar, that they will be made white as wool.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what your word says.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, we thank you that we can trust in your promises.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can cling to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can know that we will be secure, satisfied, safe, and filled up for service with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: God help us to walk for renovations, enjoy.

[SPEAKER_00]: We pray this in Christ's name.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, you guys are dismissed to your small groups.