Foundational Beliefs #5

So, we’ve talked about God and his characteristics, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (The Trinity). What their roles within each other are. We’ve talked about the Bible and its role (Gods words spoken and wrote down through centuries and kept perfectly together)

So whats the next step? What, where, who do we talk about now? - Man - where do we come in to play in all this?

On social media network you can see, hear, search for anything. So I found it fitting to talk about this while we are on the subject of - man -

CS Lewis “Religion and Rocketry 1958” on the subject of aliens - “ I wouldn’t go as far as ‘doubtless’ myself (speaking of life outside of earth) Perhaps of all races we only fell. Perhaps man is the only lost sheep; the one, therefore, whom the shepherd came to seek”

“Christ died for men precisely because men are not worth dying for; but to make them worth it”

So man - humans - do play a critical vital role in Gods plan. So all this noise you hear about aliens or life on other plants i cannot say yes or no. i can say humans are the the only ones that “A” fell and needed a savior or “B” we were the only that Christ came to die for.

A. Man is a created being

I. Man was created in the image of God. He is, therefore, unique among all that God created. He has the ability to make rational choices as well as the ability to relate to God, the Creator, He is a person, and his personhood links him to the Person who made him. His choice or will, however, is that which relates him to God.

Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Genesis 5:1 “This is the book of the generations of Adam. On the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God.”

Deuteronomy 30:19 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have placed before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,”

II. Man was created a spiritual being. It is his spirit which enables man to be aware of, as well as communicate with God, and God with him

Proverbs 20:27 “The spirit of a person is the lamp of the Lord, Searching all the innermost parts of his being.”

III. Man was created a physical being. Man’s physical body must not be abused or misused. The body is valued by us because it is valued by God as both as worthy sacrifice or offering to Him and an object of his own care.

1 Corinthians 6:15 “Do you not know that your bodies are parts of Christ? Shall I then take away the parts of Christ and make them parts of a prostitute? Far from it!”

Romans 12:1 “Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

1 Thessalonians 5:23 “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

B. Man bears great worth.

As an object of God’s love, man’s worth is more than all else in God’s eyes. God was willing to give His Sons to redeem man and even consider him as a son. Since Christ died for all, all men are created equal. There is no room for prejudice and bigotry in the lived of God’s people

John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.”

John 1:12 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name,”

Proverbs 22:2 “The rich and the poor have a common bond, The Lord is the Maker of them all.”

Acts 10:28 “And he said to them, “You yourselves know that it is forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner; and yet God has shown me that I am not to call any person unholy or unclean.”

C. Man is entrusted with great responsibility

I. God has purposed that man should care for the rest of God’s creation. Christians should seek to care for, protect, and preserve our world for the glory of God.

Genesis 1:28 “God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””

Genesis 2:15 “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and tend it.”

Psalm 8:6 “You have him rule over the works of Your hands; You have put everything under his feet,”

II. God has placed man (redeemed man, in this case) at a strategic point in His plan to redeem all mankind. Only as men of God proclaim the message of God will others be able to come to him.

Matthew 28:18–20 “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.””

Romans 10:14 “How then are they to call on Him in whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?”

D. Man is a sinner by nature and by choice

I. Because of Adam’s disobedience man is by nature a sinful being. The image of God has been marred by this original sin which all have inherited. Even so, the iage of God remains, marred as it may be , waiting to be restored.

Genesis 3:17 “Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; With hard labor you shall eat from it All the days of your life.”

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind, because all sinned—”

II. But men also commits acts of sin and thus is in need of forgiveness. God has in love provided full salvation for all men for both pardon and cleansing. That provision is accepted or rejected only by man’s own choice.