Week 1

Intro:

How many of you are big fans of jigsaw puzzles? Anyone like, that’s totally our family thing? Ok, yeah, I didn’t grow up like that, we rarely did puzzles, and I think that’s why I still don’t really ever do them. In fact, Jenna and I have only started one puzzle together since we’ve been married and we gave up on it! It sat on our dining room table for a few weeks before we checked it back into the box and never touched it again! But check out a few of what are considered the worlds hardest puzzles.

The Leprechaun Puzzle

the Lines

BLANK!

Ok why is that last one considered the world’s hardest puzzle? Because it’s one color, there is no difference between the pieces, which is the exact same as having no picture on the box. You have no guide to go off of. Putting a normal puzzle together is already a challenge. It takes time and attention to detail. You can’t just jam pieces together. Each tile of the puzzle fits perfectly only with the pieces it’s designed to join. In order to successfully complete a puzzle you need all the right pieces, and the picture to reference as a guide. But that last puzzle the only way you could solve it is to randomly grab pieces and start trying to force them together. Eventually you could do it, but it would be a blind attempt by failing over and over until you eventually succeed in the end. But it leads to a lot more frustration than it should, and many people would likely quit before ever experiencing success!

With that image in mind, our series on relationships has its context in our world today. People know and admit that we are made for relationships and people should fit together somehow. But many people don’t use any sort of reference as a guide in their relationships- families, dating, marriage, friendships- and they end up just trying to force pieces of a puzzle together in ways that they were never designed to fit. People not only act like there is no guide, but instead use whatever picture they want as a guide. Image, trying to put pieces of a puzzle together based off of the wrong puzzle box picture. This is truly where our world finds itself. Instead of God’s design for relationships- people let their emotions, friends, social media influencers, teachers, or whoever else tell them how to have relationships, instead of turning to the design of God. Here is a critical rule that we must live by-

When things seem unclear, always go back to the Beginning.

God designed everything intentionally. Meaning there is no ambiguity or grey areas of how we are meant to exist as humans! He designed us inside and out to experience and enjoy life one specific way! And like we talked about last series, the life of God can only be experienced through Jesus!

So this series, we will take all that we learned about trusting god to give us a good and satisfying life through Jesus and zoom in to how that plays out in our relationships!

Tonight we will begin by looking at the very beginning, literally. In the very beginning, how did God create us to exist in relationships?

Turn with me to page one of your bibles. Genesis 1, we are all well acquainted with this part of our Bible by now hopefully. We go to it a lot because, again, it is ground zero, the starting point that we can always look back to and gain clarity for how things are meant to be.

We’re going to look at two passages here. Genesis 1 shows us the overarching story of creation that points to God as creator of everything. Then, we will look at Genesis 2 which really zooms into the human experience of creation!

First we will read Genesis 1:26-31 but what’s going on there?

Remember, this is the chapter that has each day of creation mapped out.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. On day one God created light, calls it good and the day is over. On day two God created the sky and ordered our atmosphere and the day was over. On day three God separated the water and the land and covered the land with plants, he called it good and the day was over. Day four, God created the stars in the sky and gives us the sun and moon to distinguish between day and night, He called it good and the day was over. Day five, God creates all the life in the water and birds in the sky, He called it good and the day was over. Day 6, God creates creatures on the land and calls it good but the day’s not over…

See the pattern every day is intentional, and so when we see the pattern break it means we need to pay attention! Something special is happening.

Let’s read Genesis 1:26-31

Genesis 1:26–31 (CSB)

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image;

he created him in the image of God;

he created them male and female.

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” God also said, “Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This will be food for you, for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth—everything having the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.

Unique from EVERY other day and creature in creation is this moment of God creating humans.

This moment right here teaches us so much about who we are and how we are meant to live.

First we see:

God created humanity in His image.

This is a core truth that is very important for a lot of reasons. We have talked about some of it before, especially if you’re a middle schooler that came to ID weekend last year!

The image of God has been widely debated and studied over the years- people have said the image of God is all about our ability to reason or have consciousness, or it’s about our need for relationships, or it’s all about our morality or our individual value. Now, each of these things are really important to being human, but if we look at the Bible it is clear- the image of God isn’t about one particular characteristic or feature.

Simply put, humanity was created to bear God’s image in the world.

What does that mean? Very quickly before we dig into our main focus- remember the hebrew word for image is tselem. Does anyone remember what tselem is used for all throughout the rest of the Old Testament?

Idols! Yeah. Idols were representative of particular gods of other religions.

The other place this is used was by foreign kings in the OT to refer to themselves- they were the images of God in that they were somehow divine and embodied the will and power of their particular gods.

Now, The Bible tells a very different story- in the midst of that same culture, God’s story is that he can’t ever be contained by a man made idol, and no human king is divine. But rather, God designed humanity as a whole to bear His image to the world.

This means humanity as a whole is meant to rule and reign over creation with God and bring glory to Him through the way we do that!

Humans bear God’s image to the world by reigning over the earth by the power and presence of God.

That’s why we see that emphasis right after that we have authority over the plants and animals, Adam goes on to name the other creatures, and we get to work and create things in this world! God’s design was that we would do that together with one another and with HIM!

We’ve talked about most of that before, but Tonight, I want you to see one thing in particular though. Both genders are clearly emphasized here.

IT’s even repeated 4 times.

Let us make man 1 in our image…so God created man in His own image; he created him 3 in the image of God; he created them male and female.4

You may be thinking what about where it says man and him- those are both hebrew words that are neuter- meaning they aren’t masculine or feminine words, they are referring to human beings in general.

Ok, why does all this matter? Because- this shows us from the very beginning- God specifically designed humanity to be gendered beings- equal in value but unique in their traits to bear His image together.

I know that’s a hugely controversial claim in our world today, but the world is confused and getting less and less clear about everything, and like we said in the beginning: When things are unclear, we must go back at the Beginning.

Let’s look at one more passage that will really bring more clarity to this idea:

look a bit farther ahead in Genesis chapter 2. This is zooming into the actual process of God creating Adam and Eve. We see first God made a man, a male human and he is in the garden alone with God and all the animals with the job of naming the other creatures. So picture, Adam, the first human ever, in the Garden looking at every single animal one by one and naming them, this is where we pick up the story:

Genesis 2:18–25 CSB

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.” The Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found corresponding to him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. Then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. And the man said: This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called “woman,” for she was taken from man. This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh. Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.

This is really interesting. Everything else God had called good except what? Man being alone. One man alone in creation was not enough. Even with all the other animals around, Adam could not find a helper corresponding to him. This means that Adam knew he was not meant to have any sort of meaningful relationships with the other creatures, he knew he wasn’t satisfied with them.

We see that man was incomplete and in adequate without woman.

And God knew this too, God creates woman for the man out of the man’s side. This picture shows us that we are meant to be side by side with each other in creation.

And we see this beautiful relationship they had- it says the man and woman were naked and yet felt no shame.

That means there was no sin between them, they had no secrets to hide, no insecurities to compensate for, no lies to tell.

They just knew each other and loved each other and walked with God together.

2. Men and women can only fully reflect God’s image together!

Men and women are created to do life together, complementing one another and walking with God together.

And to be clear, yes they are eventually a picture of marriage and they have kids and start a family. But in this moment that’s not the emphasis. It’s not about married couples, it’s about humanity! Men and women, created to display God’s image to the world through the way they work in creation together in his presence.

Again, Men and women can only fully reflect God’s image together!

This is why we cannot get caught up in the lies of our world today that do one of two things:

Either we pit the two genders against each other. Men dominating the world, abusing women, and running life like tyrants. And women reacting to that with progressive feminism saying they don’t need men and using themselves to coerce men to do what they want!

That’s literally the two sides of the cures of sin we see in Genesis 3:16! Men rule over women and women want to rule over men. It’s a competitive nature that divides the two genders.

The other option we see today is blurring the lines between genders. Saying it’s just a social construct, just go with what you feel is most right for you, identify however you want, let’s move beyond the idea of two genders. We are actively watching the chaos and division that is coming out of that movement! I have met with, talked to and prayed for multiple people struggling with their gender and sexuality. So much of their struggles have been brought on by believing lies and living into them instead of trusting and living out God’s design for humanity to bear his image as male and female together.

Later in the spring we will have Sunday night real talks to dig into those topics more in depth so we won’t go there tonight. But you need to see how pitting genders against each other in competition and blurring the lines and erasing gender all together, do not align with God’s design for humans.

Men and women are meant to reflect the image of God to the world together.

That’s the only picture we need to trust and run with as we begin to think about relationships.

So, as we wrap up tonight, where does that leave us? How does this understanding of male and female bearing the iamge of God together help us start thinking about relationships. Well,

3. We must learn to serve one another as we rule over creation together.

WE are designed to grow good things in this world by the power and presence of God. This is why work is a blessing and a gift from the very beginning. The cruse is that failure, hardship and brokenness are now a regular part of our work. But we are meant to do good work that moves creation forward in the likeness of God.

And, WE CANNOT do this alone. We are designed to do this together, in communities full of Gospel-centered relationships

This means our friendships, business relationships, families, dating relationships and marriages, all must be carried out according to God’s design for respectful, loving, unified relationships.

That’s ultimately what we see in God’s family, sin divided people through brokenness, selfishness and wickedness. God designed us to be united.

The interesting thing is, we have to realize and honor our differences as men and women to be united.

The goal is unity, not uniformity.

Go back to Adam alone in the garden. He needed someone who would correspond with him, meaning someone who was like Him and to be known by and with him! And that idea of correspond actually also means opposite- like complementary. Not two identical copies with the same personalities, strengths and ability.

God designed us to have a growing flourishing community of men and women who take care of this world in His power and presence together as one loving family.

Well, healthy relationships are the only way to have a healthy community. We must understand and trust god’s design for humanity as males and females bearing God’s image together in unity!

So, as we move forward in the weeks ahead we will look at relationships of different kinds because If Men and women together reflect the image of God, then we need to learn how to relate to one another as God’s image bearers.

Bow your heads with me as we close:

Let’s respond through a few ways:

If you are here tonight and you are not a Christian, you’ve never turned away from your sins and followed Jesus as Lord. That means you are still trying to do life your own way, apart from God. You need to know, your way only leads to brokenness and death. The result of sin is only death. But God loved you so much that even though you were living in rebellion against HIm, he sent His son Jesus to save you. Yes, humans fell in the garden and rebelled against God and lost His presence and His power. But the rest of the Bible is a story of God’s rescue plan to make all things right again. Jesus lived a perfect life, he died in your place on the cross and he rose from the dead so that you could be saved. If you will call on Jesus tonight you can be forgiven of your sins, brought back into a relationship with God and He will bring every area of your life back to new eternal life the way he designed you for! Is there anyone here tonight who needs to stop living their own way, turn to Jesus and be saved tonight?

For christians in the room tonight, I want us to pray for 2 things.

First, ask God to help you understand and trust His design for humans as his image bearers. In other words, ask God to help you trust His design for how he made you to live and bring him glory.

Second, ask God to help you begin to treat everyone around you the way that God designed you to- not in competition, hatred, or even indifference- but with intentional love and care!

And also, Maybe you have struggled with how to view gender, or maybe you are struggling with your own identity. Let me be very clear, God loves you, we love you here, we want you here and God wants to help you through that! Please talk to me or another leader tonight if that’s an area you are wrestling with so we can help you find life and healing with Jesus!

PRAY