From the Beginning (Identity)
From the Begging • Sermon • Submitted
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What does God want them to know? They are a Royal Priesthood
Why? Knowing who we are determines how we live and the life of our life
What does God want them to do? Live into their identity
Why?Knowing who we are determines how we live and the life of our life
Who are you?
The question many of us ask at various times of our lives
Second biggest question outside of “who is God” is who are you
Why? It is from this question that we live and move and have our being.
In simple terms if you believe are insignificant how are you going to live?
If you believe your were made significant and made for significance how are you going to live? Signfiicantly
Where do we get our identity from?
Three ways we have seen throughout the centuries that we answered this question without God
1. Pre 1900’s If went back a couple centuries it wasn’t a question, you were born into into a identity and your identity was tied closely to your families family related
Baker, Baker
Bishop
Carpenter
Cook
Fisher
Marshall (smith too)
Taylor
But here is the problem...what is the problem with that??? what if you were named Carpenter but your carpentry abilities were more like a tornado meets a bile of wood and nails than a table?
Dad said Bill son, we are building tables, not artwork, what if Bill was really better at teaching, He had a gift to be a teacher
Or what if your name was Bishop (your dad can preach but you preaching puts people to sleep; come to church to rest and sleep) and your speaking abilites were not of speaking but rather of being a blacksmith
Not only that what if our Family has a bad name??? are we stuck
some of us had this in school
Oh your Dino’s brother
This is not good
So how did we respond to this?
2. Then in the 1900’s we started to push against this idea more so, not that it did not happen then.
People started to realize that we are all created differently
Some of us are wired to be
Sales people
Bankers
Teachers
Carpenters
Some of this was good, but what happened? In the early to mid 1900’s? Human family was replaced by the Work Family
We became human doings and not human beings
to the point if you worked for FORD you were considered part of the Ford Family
But then we realized this family is based on performance
If we do not peformance
This is not good so what did people do then?
3. What you say.
What mom says, my friends say
what is the problem with that?
What someone says can change
If they are happy with you they might speak well of you
But if they are not happy with you they might trash you
Not only that if they are unhealthy they will help you be unhealthy
4. We are do with others
Did we go back to the human family? No
We took family out
The problem is family....family is holding us back
We need to become autonamis individuals....I need to discover what is good for me....I don’t need you to tell me what to do
What does God say about this?
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
We have seen the great individual experiment take place during Covid....were in two years of individualism and did our joy go up? Are we happier? Are we more satisfied?
No, we are more depressed and anxious. less happy
we have seen depression and anxiety go from 9% to 33%
Rapid decline
TENSION
what do we do??? This is not good because we live from our identity
Let’s turn Genesis to see what God says about our identity
GOD
What we are going to do is that God gives us a Identity from the very beginning a plan and purpose for our lives.
A plan and purpose so great that to live inside the plan and the purpose gives LIFE and to LIVE outside the PURSUE is DEATH
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
HOW DID ALL BEGIN?
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
God, ruach, His Spirit breath LIFE....and everytime God breathed after He breathed HE SAID IT WAS GOOD
Then we get to day 6 in day 6 we get 3 makers of identity
Image of God: Imago Dei
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
You are not junk, you are not worthless, you are valueless....when do you become an image bearer? When you earn it? When you have function? You move your arms, when your brain works? No at conception you are image bearer…it is a status, not something we grown into
This goes for all humanity. All humanity is an image bearer, not all are believers
With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.
Animals are not image bearers
BEING AN IMAGE BEARER COMMUNICATES WE ARE VALUABLE....all humanity is valuable
Secondly, does being a image bearer just a status symbol of being valuable? NO
We must ask the question “What are image bearers to do?”
we are made to resemble, reflect, display, represent the imager…who is the imager? God.
We are created to show all of creation who God is by being an image bearer. That when people and creation see us they see God.
God is most glorified when we are satified in HIM
it does not matter what your mom or dad or boss, co-worker, friend, or who you think you are it only matters who God says you are
You are a image bearer, created to represent God.
2. Are we created to be autonomous?
individualism,
No we are created to be in the family of God
WE are created and wired for relationshp with God
Adam and Eve had a perfect relationship
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
(the same word for the Lord Walking (halak; to have communion)
But then they sinned
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
BUT THEN SIN HAPPENS AND IT BRINGS US DEATH and SEPERATION BETWEEN US AND GOD…ADAM and EVE get kicked out of the Garden of Eden
Are doomed for ever? No we read in Gen 3 that one day someone is going to come from their offspring who will reverse the curse of SIN, DEATH and SHAME
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” - Augstine
SAINTS: the Holy ONES 216 times in scripture
3. Male and Female
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
The world might say there are multiple genders, multiple things that you can be and you can change on dime.
you might feel at times more female or male at times, let’s not deny that, (sin warps and confusses) and often gender confussion comes from family abuse.
BUT, BIG BUT, YOUR FEELINGS DO NOT TRUMP FACT
OUR FEELINGS GET US IN TROUBLE A LOT!!!
I have seen this one a lot. I feel like it is ok to cheat on my spouse because they don’t love me the way Rachel can love me
So we justify it
Here is the thing the multiple genders have brought more and more chaos and confusion and anxiety, not less
FREE and HAPPY YOU WILL BE
I have seen over an over
4. We are Kings
who has dominion?
Kings
What does it mean to have dominion? To rule
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.
And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
We are created not as peasants, we are not lowely people
1. we get scared because when we see a king with power that is not always a good thing. Absolute power corrupts abosultely.
2. Kings get attacked, peasents really do.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
We are not created to be little people with little power. We are created to rule and reign the way God reigns. With Justice, love, mercy in humilty.
Do you realize this is still true today??
For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
Stop sitting on the sidelines....live into your heavenly enheritance..your heavenly reign
5. Priests
This starts all the way back in Genesis, Adam is a priest
Where?
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Put is nuached, rested Adam in the Garden
Where is the priestly role at? We do not get this
What is Adam to do?
Work and keep, so yeah, work and keep it’s a garden
Of course you have to work and keep it
Hebrew word ‘avad (עבד) can be translated as “to work,” “to serve,” or “to worship”.... and second Hebrew word, translated as “to keep,” “to guard” is shamar (שמר), which is commonly used for a priestly service of worship
These TWO WORDS together are always used of what the PRIEST DO in the TEMPLE and TABERNACLE when they were created
Worship
Serve
Keep
Guard
That’s great you might say…but there is no temple or tabernacle or is tehre
What is the Garden of Eden? What is like? Paradice, heaven, Everything is perfect, Adam and Eve walk with God, halaking
What does the Tabernacle and Temple look like?
What’s in it?
There no idols because humanity is in the image of God,
the temple has imagry of the Garden all over it, trees, lights, tree of life served as a model for the lampstand, which was clearly shaped as a tree, in the Temple, pomegranates were also placed at the bottom of the two stone pillars in the Temple)
Everything is going well in the Garden of Eden until
Adam stopped guarding and keeping the Garden
How does Adam do at keeping and guarding the temple?
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
We are not to be silent
Because of this Adam and Eve and all of us are banished from the Garden
therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.
He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
They were created to live in the Garden of Eden with God…this is not good
Then we see this priestly langauge continue after the fall
Naked and ashamed
We see a glimpse of the future redemption
And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
- kuttoneth animal skins that were worn by priests and kings
How were animal skins made by the sacarfice of blood,
Not only are they covered in priestly and kingly wardrobe…how do we get the
So what does God do in the Old Covenant?
He has the people of God build a tabernacle and eventually a temple were the high priest can come once a year.
One person
Once a year
Into the Holy of Holies, were he can walk with God.
It is in this place he
meets with God
mediates for the people
makes atonement for sin
This happens every year… but God did not want us just
One person
Once a year
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
How does God adopt us and redeem us?
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation)
he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh,
how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
Jesus becomes the sacrifical lamb that takes away the sins of the lamb.
And what is the symbolic act that happens after Jesus dies on the cross?
Matthew 27:51 (ESV)
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.
This huge veil that is 60 x 30 4” think was torn
Saying that God is going to halak
When the veil is torn and you believe in Jesus you are not just a king… you are royal priesthood.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Not only is the veil torn the temple is moved
Where is the temple moved to?
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
We are to avad “worship” and “serve”
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Q-I: WHAT IS THE CHIEF END OF MAN?
A: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.
And keep and guard our temple from the evil
Jesus says to us and to do this to each other
You want to know your identity?
You are made in the image of God
You are adopted into the family of God as male and female
You are not a pesant but a king, and not just a king a royal priesthood