What Does God Want For Everyone Of You?

What Does God Want For Everyone Of You?

Series: Why Did God Create Us?

https://vimeo.com/455286694

What does God want for every one of you?

He wants you to be part of His family.

How do I know that?

What Does The Bible Say?

8 And yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand. (Isaiah 64:8 NLT)

3 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. (1 Corinthians 1:3 NLT)

23 Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his public ministry.

Jesus was known as the son of Joseph.

Joseph was the son of Heli.

…

38 Kenan was the son of Enosh.

Enosh was the son of Seth.

Seth was the son of Adam.

Adam was the son of God. (Luke 3:23; 38 NLT)

Throughout the Bible, God speaks to us as family.

Let’s look how God prepared the world for Adam and Eve.

24 Then God said, “Let the earth produce every sort of animal, each producing offspring of the same kind—livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and wild animals.” And that is what happened. 25 God made all sorts of wild animals, livestock, and small animals, each able to produce offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:24–25 NLT)

26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us… (Genesis 1:26a NLT NLT)

God cares most for what He creates in His own image.

But this isn’t the first time God created a family.

4 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much. 5 Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line? 6 What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone 7 as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? (Job 38:4–7 NLT)

God had already created a heavenly family.

God wanted a human family to go with His heavenly family.

How Can You Obey?

26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” 27 So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26–27 NLT)

We were created to be like God.

We were created to image God, to be His imagers–to represent Him.

We are to take the role in managing and maintaining His creation.

Imaging God gives us an identity.

Imaging God gives us a purpose.

God wants you to be an image bearer!

Additional Notes:

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This series comes from the book, What Does God Want? Michael S. Heiser and Blind Spot Press, 2018.

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This week’s “Talking Theology comes from the book, Aaron, D. (2012). Understanding Theology in 15 Minutes a Day. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers.

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This does not faith is blind. It is not mindless or irrational. God will never ask us to trust in something for which there is insufficient basis for belief. It does mean we must do theology in dependence upon God, the subject of our study and author of our primary truth source—the Bible, his Word. Through his Spirit, he will guide us into all truth (John 16:13).

Aaron, D. (2012). Understanding Theology in 15 Minutes a Day (p. 17). Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers.

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The family line of Jesus

(3:23–38)

Luke traces the ancestry of Jesus all the way back from Joseph to Adam. He shows how he is a descendant of the great King David and, like Adam, a true ‘son of God’.

Knowles, A. (2001). The Bible guide (1st Augsburg books ed., p. 475). Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg.

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The Father and the Spirit (Luke 3:21–38)

One day, after all the others had been baptized, Jesus presented Himself for baptism at the Jordan; and John at first refused to comply (Matt. 3:13–15). He knew that Jesus of Nazareth was the perfect Son of God who had no need to repent of sin. Why then was the sinless Son of God baptized?

To begin with, in His baptism He identified with the sinners that He came to save. Also, His baptism was the official start of His ministry (Acts 1:21–22; 10:37–38). He was “about thirty years of age” (Luke 3:23), and the Jewish Levites began their work at age thirty (see Num. 4:3, 35). But our Lord’s words tell us the main reason for His baptism: “for in this way it is fitting for Us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15, nasb). In what way? In the way pictured by His baptism in the Jordan. Many Bible scholars agree that New Testament baptism was by immersion, which is a picture of death, burial, and resurrection. Our Lord’s baptism in water was a picture of His work of redemption (Matt. 20:22; Luke 12:50). It was through His baptism of suffering on the cross that God “fulfilled all righteousness.” (The “Us” in Matthew 3:15 does not mean John and Jesus. It means the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.)

When our Lord came up from the water, the Father spoke from heaven and identified Him as the beloved Son of God, and the Spirit visibly came upon Jesus in the form of a dove. Those who deny the Trinity have a difficult time explaining this event.

This is the first of three recorded occasions when the Father spoke from heaven. The second was when Jesus was transfigured (Luke 9:28–36), and the third was during His last week before the cross (John 12:28).

Only Luke mentions that Jesus was praying, and this was only one of many occasions (Luke 5:16; 6:12; 9:18, 28–29; 11:1; 23:34, 46). As the perfect Son of man, Jesus depended on His Father to meet His needs, and that was why He prayed.

Luke interrupted his narrative at this point to give us a genealogy of Jesus. Matthew’s genealogy (Matt. 1:1–17) begins with Abraham and moves forward to Jesus, while Luke’s begins with Jesus and moves backward to Adam. Matthew gives us the genealogy of Joseph, the legal foster-father of Jesus, while Luke gives us the genealogy of His mother Mary. Luke 3:23 can be translated: “When He began His ministry, Jesus was about thirty years old (being supposedly the son of Joseph), the son of Heli [an ancestor of Mary].” Mary herself would not be mentioned because it was unusual for women to be named in the official genealogies, though Matthew names four of them (Matt. 1:3, 5, 16).

By putting the genealogy here, Luke reminded his readers that the Son of God was also the Son of man, born into this world, identified with the needs and problems of mankind. And, since Joseph and Mary were both in David’s line, these genealogies prove that Jesus of Nazareth has the legal right to David’s throne (Luke 1:32–33).

Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 181–182). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

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Day five (vv. 20–23). God had created the sky and the waters, and now He filled them abundantly with living creatures. He made birds to fly in the sky and aquatic creatures to frolic in the seas. “O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all. The earth is full of Your possessions—This great and wide sea, in which are innumerable teeming things, living things both small and great” (Ps. 104:24–25, nkjv).

A new element is added to God’s work on this day: He not only called His work “good,” but He blessed the creatures He had made. This is the first time the word “bless” is used in the Bible. God’s blessing enabled the creatures and the fowl to reproduce abundantly and enjoy all that He had made for them. God would also bless the first man and woman (Gen. 1:28; 5:2), the Sabbath Day (2:3), and Noah and his family (9:2). After Creation, perhaps the most important occasion for God’s blessing was when He gave His gracious covenant to Abraham and his descendants (12:1–3). That blessing has reached down to God’s people today (Gal. 3:1–9).

Wiersbe, W. W. (1998). Be basic (pp. 28–32). Colorado Springs, CO: Chariot Victor Pub.

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Day six (vv. 24–31; 2:7). God had formed the sky and filled it with heavenly luminaries and flying birds. He had formed the seas and filled the waters with various aquatic creatures. Creation reaches its climax when on the sixth day He filled the land with animal life and then created the first man who, with his wife, would have dominion over the earth and its creatures.

Several important facts must be noted about the origin of humans. First, we were created by God. We are not the products of some galactic accident nor are we the occupants of the top rung of an evolutionary ladder. God made us, which means we are creatures and wholly dependent on Him. “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Luke 3:38 calls Adam “the son of God.”

Second, we were created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26–27). Unlike the angels and the animals, humans can have a very special relationship with God. He not only gave us personality—minds to think with, emotions to feel with, and wills for making decisions—but He also gave us an inner spiritual nature that enables us to know Him and worship Him. The image of God in men and women has been marred by sin (Eph. 4:18–19), but through faith in Christ and submission to the work of the Holy Spirit, believers can have the divine nature renewed within them (2 Peter 1:4; Eph. 4:20–24; Col. 3:9–10; Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18). One day when we see Jesus, all of God’s children will share in the glorious image of Christ (1 John 3:1–3; Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:49).

Third, we were created to have dominion over the earth (Gen. 1:26, 28). Adam and Eve were the first regents over God’s creation (Ps. 8:6–8). “The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s; but the earth He has given to the children of men” (Ps. 115:16, nkjv). But when Adam believed Satan’s lie and ate of the forbidden fruit, he lost his kingship; and now sin and death reign over the earth (Rom. 5:12–21).

When Jesus Christ, the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45), came to earth, He exercised the dominion that the first Adam had lost. He demonstrated that He had authority over the fish (Luke 5:1–7; John 21:1–6; Matt. 17:24–27), the fowl (26:69–75), and the animals (Mark 1:13; 11:3–7). When He died on the cross, He conquered sin and death, so that now grace can reign (Rom. 5:21) and God’s people can “reign in life” through Jesus Christ (v. 17). One day, when He returns, Jesus will restore to His own the dominion that was lost because of Adam (Heb. 2:5ff).

Wiersbe, W. W. (1998). Be basic (pp. 28–32). Colorado Springs, CO: Chariot Victor Pub.

Question 1 of 5

What is the difference between general and specific revelation?

Question 2 of 5

Why does God have to specifically communicate to us for us to really know him?

Question 3 of 5

Why does God care more about us than the plants and animals of His creation?

Question 4 of 5

What does it mean to be an image bearer of God, or another way to put it, what does it mean to be created in the image of God?

Question 5 of 5

How does it change your identity to know that you're part of God’s family as a Christian? Does it change how you see yourself regarding your importance and your purpose in life?