Created on Purpose
Who Am I? • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 15 viewsNotes
Transcript
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
When you create something you make sure your masterpiece is perfect. Before you show someone your masterpiece everyone makes sure that EVERY. SINGL.E LITTLE. Detail is perfect, wouldn’t you? I remember when I was a kid in art class and we had an entire week to work on a certain project and every Friday we would take home our project and show our masterpiece to our parents. I remember growing up and this was the most stressful part of my Fridays. I always wanted to make sure my project was perfect for my parents.
Each week I took my time with each stroke of the pencil, I took my time with the utensils given to me to curate this perfect masterpiece. I remember this one time I took home this mural of what my house looked like. We were working on making borders for a picture and then coloring something within the border we just made. I remember being so proud of this drawing that when I came home the first thing I did was put that sucker on the fridge! I wanted people to marvel at my creation.
When my parents came home they saw my creation, I was SO hyped about this drawing that at the end of the year when they art program gave out order forms to transform your art into magnets I took that sucker home and I made my mom order that drawing as a magnet because I wanted to make sure that EVERY SINGLE LITTLE detail was perfect!
Every day since then I would always search that drawing, day and night, I would search that drawing. I being an imperfect human being, I began to notice the imperfections over time. Now I have no idea where it is…
However, I was reflecting on this idea of searching for something perfect within things. It made me think of how God searches within us to find himself. It reminded me of the idea that if we call ourselves Christians, we ought to look something like Christ.
Upon coming to this realization, I further asked the fundamental question sitting at the base of this recognition: Who Am I to God?
What are we talking about: “Who Am I?”
To answer this question, I think we should turn to Psalm 139
1 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
Main Point #1: Messed Up…
This is Gods choice, he doesn’t have to but he wants to
Mental
Perceive our thoughts
Before we speak he knows what we are going to say
Physical
Knows when we get up and when we lie down
We cannot escape his presence
All this talk about searching has me thinking back to a time where playing “Hide & Seek” was one of the most fun things I did when I was at my Grandmothers house. I remember playing “Hide & Seek” with my Great Aunt Debbie all the time. Of course because I was much smaller back then, I consistently won over and over, I love the part in the game when you are hiding and the seeker gets super close to where you are hiding but they don’t actually find you. Actually, did you know there was a time in the Bible where people played “Hide & Seek?”
In Exodus we get introduced to a man named Moses who wrote the first five books of the Bible. These first five books are called one of two things: the Pentateuch, or the Books of the Law according to Moses. Moses writes the history of the Israelite nation beginning at the dawn of time with Adam and Eve. Moses begins the historical account in Genesis (which literally means start).
When it comes to the creation account, Moses doesn’t play around. He fills the pages with theology that has lasted lifetimes. He says in Genesis 1 this:
Genesis 1:26–27 “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in 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.”
Let’s Recap:
Creation account:
God created mankind in his image.
This theology is called Imago Dei (which is literally just greek for “image of God” which is what Mankind was created to reflect)
God then created animals and a garden for the man to tend to
This gives Mankind a purpose on Earth.
God noticed the animals had a partner and that man was lonely because he didn’t have a partner
Created a woman to be a helper, equal but submissive to her husband.
God tasked the man to lead according to the way in which God leads him.
They were to leave their father and mother to unite and become one flesh (completely open with one another and honest with no secrets/nothing coming between them).
God created Mankind in his image (Imago Dei), with a purpose (tending to the animals and the land), while also giving him a wife (who became one flesh with Adam) and called it GOOD.
When in the Garden of Eden, life couldn’t have been more perfect, literally. It’s like a picture of a garden on the fridge with no blemishes. It is exactly perfect. God has called his masterpiece good.
I’m not sure about you but when I read this I can’t help be think that there is no way there could have been a perfect garden at one point in time. We feel this way because you and I know about Sin. God gave Adam and Eve one rule: Do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The Devil HATES what is good which means he will do anything to steal, kill, or destroy what is good in our lives. He embodies darkness, he is the definition of Sin, he represents those who live in opposition to God and his word. He is everything wrong with the world, and lies to us about anything so that we can’t have a piece of what is good in life.
The Devil hates what God has called good. He hates you, which is why he lies to Adam and Eve, he hates them the same way he hates you and I. He distorts the truth, he lies and says “You will not certainly die.” He convinced Adam and Eve that eating from the Tree was totally fine, and that by eating the fruit, they would actually be on the same level as God.
This is false, they will die as a result of sin. Death is a consequence for the sins we commit. Don’t believe me?
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
20 The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.
16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
16 The wages of the righteous is life, but the earnings of the wicked are sin and death.
5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death.
8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
God doesn’t reveal his plan to us all the time because it’s for our own good. Satan likes to take what we don’t know and twist it to make it fit his agenda, not God’s.
Always use prayer for discernment when you need direction. “Lord, show me where you want me to go.” “Lord, make it abundantly clear for me your will for my life.”
Because the lie seems desirable, BOTH Adam and Eve give into sin. Immediately, their eyes are opened, they realize that sometimes sin feel good. Sometimes evil things, though they know it's not the right thing to do, they do it anyway.
19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
Adam and Eve, then knowing they have sinned against God, were afraid of him, they hid because they knew they were naked, shame came flooding into their lives.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Do you ever feel like there is no way God will ever forgive you because the things you have done are awful? Have you ever rejected God, or hid from God like Adam and Eve because you were ashamed of who you have become because of the sins you have committed?
Have you felt like: because of the lies the devil feeds you, you NEED to commit this sin in order to function in life, you HAVE to do that one thing because if you don’t you might not be in control, or because everyone else is doing it, maybe you're insecure in who you are internally so you have convinced yourself you HAVE to sin in order to actually be seen as someone of “worth.”
The story should be written, the once perfect picture on the fridge now has a smudge on it. It is no longer perfect. It is no longer a viable representation of God interacting with the people he created. The creation is no longer considered Good. Mankind became selfish and tried to replace God with themselves.
The story is written, you take the photo off the fridge, throw it away, burn it, destroy it, get rid of the filth that is now a no longer perfectly GOOD photo.
9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
An all-knowing God, a God who HATES SIN, who has wrath for sinners beyond anything we could ever imagine, a God who constantly talks of destroying what is broken and sinful in and throughout the whole Bible, called out to a clearly broken and sinful man and his wife “Where are you?”
You only ask that question when you want to find someone, God wanted to find his creation, even after they messed up. He wants to find you and me, even when we mess up.
That doesn’t mean he forgets the sin that we have committed, we have already discussed that sin leads to death. That doesn’t change.
God first hears Adam and Eve's plea’s, when the woman tells of her deception the Lord jumps into action.
FIRST, God curses the serpent.
God tells of a prophecy in which he will be destroyed at the end of time. He tells the serpent that he might have taken a stab, but ultimately he will be the one to lose in the end. (He will kill Jesus, but Jesus will beat death, the penalty of sin).
Main Point #2: …But God…
God’s reaction to Mankind Sinning is exactly like you might think. God is not happy with Mankind, but something happens in his “unhappiness.”
If we were in this position with our parents, significant others (married people), it might cause a fight, it might cause an argument. But we are talking about God here, we have no position to argue with the God that created us in his image. This is completely on us, this is our fault, not his.
The two single greatest words in the entire Bible are about to be said in Genesis 3:9
9 But God called to the man, “Where are you?”
God goes searching for us. He knows what was happening, He knows they were hiding from him. After all, God is an All-knowing God, why would he NOT know they are hiding.
Marin Point #3 …Redeems!
God turns towards the Evil one first. There are consequences to our sins, there is a consequence for intentionally removing ourselves from god’s presence. At the core of the problem, it is our idolatry of self, the love that we have for ourselves. However, there is no amount of self-love that we could muster up that would ever be able to replace the love God has for his people. How can I be so confident: He turned to the the Evil one first. He cursed the evil inside of us. There is consequences for our sins that we brought upon ourselves, God doesn’t inflict pain on us, the sin (as a result out our bent loyalty to ourselves over God) produces a painful longing and yearning for redemption.
God doesn’t just “deal with” the Evil one by telling him to knock it off. No, in Genesis 3:15 God says “15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.””
Enmity means to be hostile towards, or to have hostility towards.
God says that the offspring that comes from Eve will have hostility towards and with the Evil one, God hates sin, but through this prophecy God has proclaimed that the offspring will crush the head of the Evil one, thus ending sin, deceit, malice, hatred, evil, all together. Not without a price, the Evil one with strike the heel of the offspring, but that will be no match for the crushing the offspring will have on the Evil one.
incase you need me to spell it out for you, the death Jesus experienced is no match for the victory found in the resurrection. This same resurrection is available to our souls, if we place our faith in Jesus who has reminded us that we are created in the first place to walk with God. We have been created to have communion with God, we have been created on purpose with purpose. We are a masterpiece created by God to enjoy life with our creator. We are no longer subject to eternal damnation because of the sins we committed, but rather through the redemptive nature of Christ we have the opportunity to be redeemed. What is stoping you from enjoying a fruitful life with God each and every single day? What is stoping you from living the life God intended for you. He created you with a purpose, to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
So, take that next step. Let the passions you have created for yourself go. Allow God to infiltrate your heart. Repent of your sins, of your self idolatry and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins and most importantly, let communion with God lead you to an abundant life.
If you remember nothing, I plead with you remember this one thing: You are not an accident; you are a masterpiece created with a purpose.
