Genesis 1_26_28 Sin and its effects

Genesis 1:26-28, 2:15-17 3:6-7, 3:21, Eph 4:24, Col. 3:10 “Being who I was created to be.”

Intro: A Wild-eyed man, dressed like Napoleon Bonapart entered into the office of a psychiatrist, he placed his right hand inside of his coat and nervously exclaimed, “Doctor, I need your help right away!”

“I can see that,” the Doctor replied. “Lie down on that couch, and tell me you problem.”“I don’t have any problems,” the man snapped In fact, as Emperor of France, I have everything I could possibly want: Money, Women, Power --- everything! But I’m afraid my wife, Josephine, is in deep mental trouble.”

“I see,” said the psychiatrist, humoring his distraught patient. “And what seems to be her main problem?”

“For some strange reason,” answered the unhappy man, “she thinks she is Mrs. Schwartz!”

A cute little joke however I tend to preach today about a serious matter plaguing humanity. Today across the globe there is a great identity crisis, mankind is uncertain as to who he/she is, and certainly who he/she was created to be.

Many years ago, an identity crisis was something someone may have suffered during their middle age. After working several years, having a family, and possessions; one began to question “Is this who I am suppose to be?” However, today we see a crisis of so vast that even children are confused as to who they are, little boys who think they are little girls, little girls who think they are little boys. Men and women attracted to the same sex, men and women who lust over multitudes of the opposite sex. People have an upside down understanding of who they are and often times they blame God for their crisis, stating, “this is how God created me.” God is not the problem, sin is the culprit!

Sin is the underlying factor of every issue man faces today, in fact because of sin…. Man has a misunderstanding of sin itself!

Man calls it an accident, God calls it abomination.

Man calls it a defect, God calls it a disease.

Man calls it an error, God calls it an enmity.

Man calls it a liberty, God calls it lawlessness.

Man calls it a trifle, God calls it a tragedy.

Man calls it a mistake, God calls it madness.

Man calls it a weakness, God calls it willfulness.

Genesis, the book of beginnings comes from the Greek Old Testament and is the generations of Adam. This book is written by Moses under divine inspiration of God. No Bible book more fully teaches God as Creator and humanity as sinners who cannot save themselves, than Genesis.

The themes of Genesis include Creation, Death, Judgment, Covenant, and Providence. In Creation we are made aware that God created man in His image giving rightful evidence that mankind is accountable to his creator. Throughout Genesis the term “he died” is recorded seventy-eight times (78) impressing the fact that the fall indeed had the effects God warned about. In Genesis we see the flood and it is proof positive that God judges the race that He created. However, God made a covenant with Noah and Abraham which testifies that God reaches out with grace in mercy to the fallen race. In the Joseph narratives we see God’s providential care of those people who are indeed His!

CPS: Today I want you to see that God created you in grace and great love, fashioning you after His image, yet due to sin there is a crisis among everyman but there is certainly hope that you can be the man/women with whom God created you to be.

God created man in His likeness to be His image bearer Gen. 1:26-28

Some of the most magnificent words recorded in the Scriptures are, “God said.” God (Elohim) depicts the God of power. El – is a name for deity which magnifies power and the addition of “ohim” indicates the plural sense of the one true God. God created everything from nothing right? God created everything by the words of His mouth, right? God created the earth from void and filled it with plants, trees, fish, and all the beast by the power of His word. However, man was not created in such a way.” In Genesis 1:26 “God said” refers to Him speaking among Himself and this gives us a glimpse of His compound unity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

According to Genesis chapter 2, God fashioned man from the dust of the creation that He had already made. Like a great potter who sculptors a clay vessel, fashioning him with great care and perfection. When God’s masterpiece was formed He breathed the breath of eternal life upon his greatest creation. It was with great love and attention to detail that He created man.

The bible says, God created man according to His Image (3x) and likeness. God modeled man after Himself. It means God created an (Imago Dei) Image bearer. This doesn’t mean that God looks just like you but that He created you to reflect His image in all the earth. God created you as a sort of tracheotomy, Body/Mind/Soul. God created you with personality, a mind, a will, with emotions, and freedom. Like God, man has intellect, a moral nature, and the power to communicate with others.

God created you unlike all the rest of creation; He created you according to His likeness! It’s no surprise that after God created through the first part of the sixth day, he said it was good. But, on the second half of the sixth day, when man was created God said it was very good! God created you in all perfection an eternal being in order to have domain over his creation and to populate it with His special creation.

You were created according to God’s grace, specially formed with love and affection, with great care and attention to details to reflect His perfect glory on the face of the earth.

God gave man a single command so he could love God according to his own free will Gen. 2:15-17

As God created man He gave him grace and the gift of freedom to obey. When we look at the rest of creation we see that it obeys God. The Mountains stopped where God raised them up, the shores of the sea end where God commanded them, the stars hang where God hung them, the animals obey and we witness this by their coming to Ark by twos. Everything in the created order obeys the sovereign creator. He did not give them the option of freely obeying.

But He did give this freedom to man. Now it is important to note that once Adam and Eve were created, the Bible says they were naked and not ashamed. There is innocence among the first man and woman. An innocence that you and I do not know, to be truly innocent in our nature, you see God is not the creator of evil and mankind was not created with a sin nature. But they were graced with the ability to choose.

In chapter 2 God is revealed by Moses as LORD God, Yahweh Elohim, the self-existent covenant God of power and He creates a garden and places Adam and Eve in it. Everything they could possibly need is in this garden and He tells them they may eat “freely” of any tree of the garden except for one, the tree of the knowledge of God and evil.

The word knowledge means to discern, Adam was in such innocence that he didn’t know evil but God wants His people to love him not under duress, or from compulsion, or even because of reward. He wants man to freely love Him. Therefore, a command was given; do not eat from this tree. One stipulation, that was all!

Adam was created as a perfect creature, one having never sinned, but he had the ability to sin. In the Garden of Eden Adam had liberty and abundant provisions having no need to eat from this forbidden tree. Yet, God commanded Him not to, in order to give him the ability to love God by his own free will.

Man disobeyed and His image bearer became marred Gen. 3:6-7

In Chapter three we see that man disobeyed God sending the creation into a state of corruption and rebellion. The tempter came to Eve, the fallen angel Lucifer, embodied in a serpent in order to deceive God’s creation. He tempted her with by saying God is holding out on you! If He truly cared for you and loved you He would have given you the ability to be even more like Hi understanding good and evil. Note, the crafty serpent does not try to persuade Eve to pay homage to him instead he attacks her mind and indirectly suggests that she shifts her commitment from doing God’s will to doing her own will.

Look in 3:6, when she saw the food was good to eat; Satan appealed to lust of the flesh – She saw it and it looked good for food, perhaps it made her hungry. It was a delight to her eyes; Satan appealed to the lust of the eyes – it looked pleasant. It was desirable to make one wise; Satan appealed to the pride of life – AND SHE ATE!

Now Eve was deceived by that slippery old serpent but what about Adam? He acted deliberately! Perhaps it was because he understood the consequences and chose to willingly become a sinner that he may be able to stay with his bride. But when Adam ate their eyes were open and they could discern between good and evil and immediately they recognized they were naked. It that instance the age of innocence was shatter, the first results of sin were shame and fear! Sin destroyed the perfection in which God created them.

And as God created man in perfection after His image this image became marred. All of who he was is damaged. God promised Adam death would come if He disobeyed. In that very instant man died spiritually. There was instant physical death and progressive physical death. No more would he physically live forever, no more could he be in direct fellowship with God. Sin pits a wedge between man and God and all that is has been damaged by sin.

Because of this sin, the generations of Adam are flawed, broken, damaged, and sinful. Through Adam sin was imputed to everyone born of him, everyman! The Bible teaches that now, all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. Sin has affected all of man, not just every man, but all of man, Mind, Body, and Soul.

The issue with our identity is not that the truth of who we are is so difficult to understand but it lies in the damage that sin has done to man. Sin has separated us, sin has corrupted our minds, flung our hearts into rebellion, and our desires are no longer for the perfect and innocent but the flawed and corrupt. God created you in perfection to bear His glory in all of earth. To say that God has made us to be lustful for the same sex, to say that God made a boy physically but a girl emotionally, to say that God has made me to lust after every member of the opposite sex is all to say that God made a mistake when He made me! God made no mistakes; sin has damaged every aspect of man.

Though marred we can still be who He created us to be by His grace Gen. 3:21

The marred image bearer of God, Adam saw his and his bride’s nakedness and tried to do something about it. When he heard God walking in the garden he hid because there is now a natural wedge between God and man. In man’s best attempt to cover Himself he failed to do so. Nothing he could do could cover his shame. But in grace and mercy God took it upon Himself to do for the man what He could not do.

First He cursed the serpent then promised a seed born of a female (notice not male and female) would come a defeat the enemy of God and man, Satan. The God Himself covered the naked and ashamed couple. He created a garment for both of them from the skin of an animal, this is indeed the first sin offering. The Bible teaches that without blood there isn’t atonement for sin. The atonement mean “a covering.” By this act God Himself offered atonement to this couple by grace through faith. The flawed man was still flawed but now His sin could be covered.

Fast forward two thousand years and God kept good on his promise, the seed came and offered Himself for the sins of the world at His first coming. His name is Jesus, born of a virgin, fulfilled the will of God for man, and by His blood man sin has received eternal covering, by grace through faith.

The Bible teaches when one comes to God through faith He is born again and becomes a new creature. The apostle Paul teaches this great truth as he writes. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Cor. 5:17) He then tells us that we can bear the Glory of God as a restored image bearer. And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.(Eph. 4:24) AND AGAIN, And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: (Col. 3:10).

The flawed and marred image bearer of God can be who he was created to be by grace through faith in the gospel of Christ Jesus. He can reflect the glory of God in His person…. mind, body, and spirit! Paul tells us,  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:29)

Sin is dirty business there is an old saying about it.

Sin will take you farther than you ever thought you’d straySin will leave you so lost, you think you’ll never find your waySin will keep you longer than you ever thought you’d staySin will cost you more than you ever thought you’d pay

The identify crisis we have today is a problem of sin and the damage it has done to the whole of man… But in Christ Jesus you can be who you were created to be!