Well, good morning. So as Cole said, my name is
Andrew. We moved here in 2016 and helped
be a part of the the foundation of Frontier.
We were here for six years and moved away and we've been gone
for four years and we got back here as quick as we could.
And so we are so excited to be here.
And before we get started in our our work this morning, I want to
point out something because I have a unique perspective on
Frontier being here from day one.
I have a unique perspective on Frontier Church just being here
at the beginning and then coming back and we visited a couple of
times throughout the years. But what God is doing in
Frontier is very unique. And take my word at that.
You may think I feel alone. I feel like people don't
understand me. But what I want you to
understand is that God has uniquely blessed Frontier and
that you have a unique blessing. And being a part of Frontier,
I've been a part of many, many churches.
I've been working for churches since I was 18 years old.
I'm 34 now. So I've seen a lot of variety of
churches in different States and different cities, but what we
have here is a church family at Frontier is something that's
unique and something that's really good.
And so I'm glad to be a part of our church family once again.
All right, I got all my sappiness out of me now, but I
want you to know that this is awesome.
OK, so let me give a little recap to properly frame where
we're going to be at this morning, and we're going to be
in Genesis 126 and 27. We'll apparently drew the short
stick last week and got all the verses this morning.
I've got 2. So we're going to be in Genesis
126 and 27 this morning. But before we get to that, that
part of our passage, I'll just recap what we've been looking
at. We've defined the book of
Genesis and especially chapters one through 11.
They are not pointing us to science.
It's not a scientific textbook. That's not what Genesis is
about. Genesis, especially one through
11, is a theological text. It is pointing us to who did
what and why that, who did that particular thing in this
particular way. So what we have here this
morning and what we've looked at the the past weeks, it's not
telling us the mechanics of all of these things, but it's
telling us the why of all of these things and The Who of all
of these things. Cole did a great job setting us
up and framing the trajectory of the creation narrative.
And that what we see here in Genesis chapter one in
particular, and we'll get into this a little bit more in
Genesis chapter 2 is kind of a polemic.
It's, hey, you've heard of all these other gods and this is how
they describe the world. They created the world out of
chaos. Like they used chaos and they
created more chaos to have dominion over everything else.
There was this cosmic battle and that's how the universe was
created. Or you've, we, we've talked
about how other ancient Near Eastern myths of creation were
pointing to the fact that the gods would get hungry.
Well, how do they get fed? Well, they create these little
dirt beings and they create food for them to eat.
So we've, we've talked through that and we've pointed to and
looked at how what the creation account in Genesis of Yahweh,
the God of gods is different then all these other ancient
near Eastern myths about creation, their similarities.
But what Genesis is trying to do is saying, hey, you've heard
this. Let me tell you what the truth
actually is. And so we've seen on day one,
God creates light and he doesn't have to defeat some other God in
order to create light. He just speaks it into
existence. We've seen on day 2, God creates
the expanse, he creates the skies, he creates all this, this
separation from matter and things to to look at things to
organize around. On day three, he creates plants.
So on this, I've taught through Genesis with six to 12th graders
a couple years ago. And the illustration I use is
it's like God creates a ball of play DoH.
He's got a ball of play DoH. But what does that ball of play
DoH do? Well, it just, it's just a ball
of play DoH. And so in these days, we get God
taking chunks of this ball of play DoH and putting it for a
particular purpose. He fashions it into something.
And so as we go, as we've gone through these days, when he
creates plants, it's like God takes this chunk out of this
ball of play DoH. He takes this matter that he's
created and he's starts to cause trees to come out of the ground.
He makes fruit that is tasty. He makes vegetables that are
arguably for some of you tasty. He, he creates this, this
habitat of a flourishing of abundance that has been one of
the themes that we've seen in the past couple of weeks is
abundance. And then on day four, he creates
the sun, the moon, the stars. And he does this to divide day
and night. So there's not just light, but
there's a light that governs the daytime and then there's a light
that governs the night time. And then he also creates these
other planets and these stars, things to look at and to marvel
at. And just like last night, I was
walked out of my driveway and almost fell because the morning
Water Works is terrible and my driveway flooded.
And there's like an ice skating rink that has nothing to do with
what we're talking about today. It's just just something I'm
dealing with in inside my own self.
But I can look up and I see all these things.
The God of the universe, Yahweh God has created this.
And then on day five, we saw that He created animal life.
So He's created the greenery, the shrubbery, the plants, the
trees. He's created all these things.
And then He puts animals that go around and now they have
something to eat. So we've seen God's meticulous
creative genius throughout all of what we've looked at in
Genesis chapter 1. But He's not done yet.
He's not done yet. He's still got something else He
wants to create. He's taken this chaotic ball of
play DoH and he's systematically created something and he's done
it for a purpose. He creates the cosmos, he
creates the water, he separates the water.
He creates plants that grow here and not over here.
He's created plants that grow over there, but not right beside
you. He's done all of this for a
particular purpose. That's one of the things I love
about these first couple of pages of Scripture, as we see
God's meticulous hand at work, He speaks and he speaks with
precision. He gets his hands dirty and he
does it for a purpose. And so this morning, if you were
able, would you stand with me as we read God's Word together?
Genesis 126 and 27. And 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 and his own image, and the image of God He
created him, male and female. This is the word of God,
brothers and sisters, it is true and it is good.
May be seated. Father, this morning as we
return to the word that you have revealed to us, we have many
questions and some of those we will never receive answers to
this side of new creation. And so God, as we live in this
tension of all of the whys and all of the hows.
I I pray that you would help us to know that you have revealed
to us the things that you wish to reveal to us and that we
would trust them, that we would love them and that we would
enjoy them. So this morning as we dive into
these two verses on the first page of our Bible, I pray that
you would open the eyes of our hearts and that we would have a
renewed faithfulness and love of your Son Jesus and be thankful
for all that he has done for us. So it's in his powerful name of
that I pray, Amen. All right, so you may not know
this about me, even those of you that I'm close friends with and
those of you that I'm strangers with, but I have an, an
illustrious academic career. I did 2 years at Temple
Community College in Temple, TX. So that's my illustrious career,
two years of Community College, but I took a philosophy class
under my first years there. So I'm a, I'm an expert in
philosophy. So if you have any huge
philosophical questions, come bring those to me and I'll
handle those for you. But one of the the first papers
I had to write was based on this premise What does it mean to be
human? So that was the first premise.
And then the the following subtitle of the premise was was
this How We Define human and what it means to be human?
Will base the following questions which is based on your
understanding of what it means to be a human.
Do the pre born have human rights?
Do those with Down syndrome have human rights?
And so I was sitting this class as a 18 1/2 year old and I'm
hearing my classmates give all their answers.
What does it mean to be human? Oh intellect, What does it mean
to be human? The ability to provide a, a
tangible good for society. What does it mean to be human?
Oh, the, the way that you're able to create things and tap
into that creative part of your brain.
All of them were answering the question of what does it mean to
be human by capabilities, by capacity, by what you could
potentially be. And people were just basing
humanity and who they were based on whatever what they were able
to do. So this morning, the question I
have for you is, what does it mean to be human?
And who are you really? Who are you?
Are you the sum total of all the things that you've accomplished
thus far in life? Do you identify yourself just as
mom, dad, husband, wife, teacher, preacher, whatever
vocation that you find yourself in life right now?
Is that how you define yourself? What does it mean to be human?
Who are you? I think that's one of the
biggest questions in life to ask ourselves.
Who are you? When you look at yourself in the
mirror in the morning and it's been it was a rough night with
the kids or you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning
before work and you want to be married and you're not married
yet. And you ask yourself, who am I?
How do you answer that question? Well, our passage this morning
answers that question for us. What does it mean to be a human
and who are you? That's what our passage teaches
us this morning, right. Later on in the next chapter,
we'll get more into how God created man.
But this morning we're looking at the identity of a human
being. What does it mean to be human?
What does it mean to be created in the image of God?
And so that's what we're going to dive down deep into this
morning. So let's get started.
And brother Will, I'm again, I'm sorry, I've got 2 verses.
So this is just going to go a little bit quicker than than
what you had. So let's look at our passage and
I'm going to kind of batch together verse 27 with the first
part of verse 26. So if you get confused, that's
my fault. But I'm going to bash these
together because it's kind of a literary structure of here's
point A, then I'm going to go point B, and then I'm a circle
back to point A. So verse 26, then God said let
us make man in our image after our likeness.
OK, so I like to get into the weeds.
That's not the point of today's sermon, but I'm going to, I'm
going to tease you out. If you got more questions, I
would love to talk with you about that later.
But let us make man in our own image after our likeness.
I'm just going to give you 2 interpretations of this passage.
That's not the point of the sermon, but we're going through
this verse by verse. So like it or not, I'm going to
I'm going to give it to you here.
So let us make man in our own image after own likeness.
So there's a there are like 5 interpretations of what this
could possibly mean. I'm going to just give you 2.
If you want the other three, I'll buy you coffee.
And we can, we can hash it out together.
Podcast. Yeah, we can.
We can resurrect the podcast. But so you've got two classical
interpretations of this passage. The first one, and this really
came post reformation with this is a Trinitarian view of the
Godhead in Genesis chapter 1. So the when God says let us make
man in our own image, you've got Father, Son and Holy Spirit
present there. And that's what the US refers
to. So that's an Orthodox
interpretation of this passage, another Orthodox.
And by Orthodox, I don't mean Eastern Orthodox, I mean just
that it's been held by, by the church for for centuries.
Is that this is referring to God speaking to his heavenly
counsel. So the angelic and spiritual
beings that he's already created, he's saying, Hey, we're
going to make these dirt dwellers now, you're my heavenly
family. I'm going to make an earthly
family now as well. And some of that will be
clarified a little bit more in chapter 2.
But those are the 2 two interpretations there.
But what the point of this is, is that God is saying, let us
make man in our own image after our likeness.
But then if you hop down to verse 27, it says, so God
created man in his own image, in the image of God.
He created them male and female. So definitely the Trinity is
present here, right? Because the Father, the Son, the
Spirit, all Co equally eternal, have the same objective, have
the same capacity for everything, have the same
knowledge. So the Trinity is definitely
there. But if you were an ancient Jew,
you would not have thought about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in
this. But the point of this, again, I
don't want to take us out into the weeds too much.
I just like to nerd out on some of these things.
But the point of the verse 26 and verse 27 is to point us to
how humans were created. They weren't created out of some
cosmic war. They weren't created out of some
sibling rivalry. It wasn't a demigod who had a
great idea out of out of the blue.
What this is teaching us is that God created man.
So this word man here that you see, let us create man in our
own image. The Hebrew word is Adam, which
just means man, right? So humankind, God creates
humankind and he doesn't do it just for funsies.
He doesn't do it because he's bored.
He doesn't do it because he was just like, I'll just throw
something up against the wall and see what works.
That's not what he was doing because everything else that
he's been doing has been meticulous.
It's been thoughtful. One day he does this, the next
day he does this. The day after that he does this.
And so we don't see God as someone who is just operating in
chaos. He's over chaos.
He's ordering out chaos. And so he has properly prepared
the world for something to happen.
And that thing to happen is these little dirt beings, these
humans. And so on the 6th day, God has
prepared the world for these humans.
He's everything is good to go, right?
They, they know that. Oh, sun's up.
All right, I got to get to work. Oh, I see the moon now.
Probably should go to bed. Oh, I'm hungry.
Oh, there's this plant over here that's really tasty, kind of
bitter on the front end. But I think if you just chew
through it a little bit, it'll pay off.
Oh, we can get into the vegan vegetarian conversation later
on, but let's just start here. Like, oh, man, look at that
little rabbit. Like that thing is cute.
Look at that little thing. Oh, look at these deer, man.
Look how majestic they are. This cow thing, it makes these
weird noises. And I, I don't know if I'm going
to eat it, but it looks fairly tasty.
Like God has prepared everything for this day, right?
If God had not done what he did on day one, days two through six
would not make any sense. It would not be possible.
But God has systematically made the world a place for day 6
where he creates his humans, his earthly family.
But what does it mean to be made in the image of God?
All right, this is getting into The Who are you question.
When you look at yourself in the mirror and you say, who am I?
What's your response? Is it just your job?
Is it just your marital status? Is it just your parenthood
status? Is it your video game ranking?
Is it your hobbies? How do you answer the question,
who am I? Genesis 1 tells us that we as
humans are created in the image of God.
And this is where I think a lot of well-intentioned Christians
go wrong about talking about what the image of God is.
Because a lot of times this normally comes up around the
abortion conversation, the pro-life versus pro-choice
conversation. And a lot of well-intentioned
Christians will say, well, you know, that baby could go on to
be the next Billy Graham, or that baby could go on to be the
next president of the United States who changes the
trajectory of the world. And those things may be true,
but what we're talking about is potential.
What we're talking about is capability.
That's not what this is telling us.
Scripture is not telling us about potentiality.
Scripture is not telling us about capability.
Scripture is saying that inherently, as being a human,
you are in the image of God. So what does that mean if we
strip away capabilities? If we strip away intellect, if
we strip away potentiality, if we strip away personality, what
we have here still is you are created in the image of God.
It's not based on what you can do.
It's not based on what you've done well or what you have not
done well. It is based on the fact that you
are created in the image of God. So as a human being, so you
whenever you look in the mirror, maybe tonight, maybe in the
morning, maybe you're like me and you don't like looking in
the mirror. And you ask yourself the
question, who am I? Your answer is I am created in
the image of God. This word image in Hebrew means
statue. Some people will even go so far
as to say idol, which yes, but that just has negative
connotations in our Western mind.
So the word statue let us create statues in our own image.
So in the ancient world, I mean, it's still today, people do
this, but they would create a statue, like a ruler would
create a statue and put it somewhere that his palace was
not in or where his castle wasn't or where his Kingdom
directly wasn't, to say, hey, here's where I live, but over
here, I'm going to make the statue and it represents my rule
and reign, even though I'm not there presently.
This is to show all you fools that I own this territory.
Like this is mine. It's not yours, it's mine.
So look at this nice bronze sculpture.
I've got more muscles than I actually do in the statue, but I
look cool. And this is to remind you of the
power and the authority that I have over this geography, right?
So for God to create humans in his own image, what he's doing
is he's showing his rule and reign over all of creation.
And this is unique, like the little Bunny rabbit that's
frolicking about sneaking into your garden, eating your
favorite stuff. As cool as he is, he does not
bear the image of God. He's not an imager.
He's not a statue of of God. Yes, he reveals the nature of
God in a certain aspect. And like, OK, who would create a
creature that looks like this? Like big ears and weird teeth
and little nose that twitches and hiding?
Like it reveals that there is a creator behind that little fuzzy
creature, right? A tree as beautiful as they are.
Before we move back to Des Moines, Tracy and I lived in the
Panhandle of Texas. If you've never been there, it's
you can watch your dog run away for three weeks and there are no
trees, right? So coming back to to Des Moines,
like I'm looking at all the trees and I've heard like some
native Des Moines Da Moini acts however you want, whatever you
want to call them. But talk about like, I just want
to see something other than I, I'm like, dog, you got to go
down to the Panhandle of Texas and this will look like Eden to
you. But like, as beautiful as all
these trees are, they do not bear the image of God.
They generally reveal that God exists, and they point to him as
they grow, as they have their leaves that change colors during
various seasons. But they don't bear the image of
God. These humans, these Adams, these
dirt beings, they bear the image of God.
Why is that? Why do you bear the image of
God? Because God wanted you to.
God wanted an earthly family that would represent his rule
and reign over all of creation. I again, I'm getting into the
section where I can't give too much away for the next couple of
sermons, which bothers me. But anyway it it'll make sense
like so I promise. Like there will be a payoff
here. But being human means being an
image. Being an I skipped over since
parts of my notes here. Being an imager of God.
Not just like a a relic to look at, not just a simple statue,
but something that is actively imaging God's rule and reign
over all the earth. Again, not built on your
capacity, not built on your potentiality, not built on your
abilities to do XY and Z, but just inherently, you are the
image of God. You're created in the image of
God. You image Him.
You are his statue. That this isn't just put into a
bed of concrete and stays there, but we get to roll around and
move and talk to people and listen to people and to go to
work and to go home and to go do hobbies.
And everywhere we go, we are his imagers.
We are telegraphing to the world and to each other that the
unseen God, who is the God of all gods, who is over all
things, He has authority over all of this, all of it.
And I think that's when I started viewing these couple of
verses in Genesis like this. That really one super convicting
2 made God's handiwork even more beautiful to me.
Select the first first part of convicting.
If I am created in the image of God, if I'm his little mobile
statue, and if we are his mobile statues that are scurrying
about, that means what I do at home matters.
Like when I'm a lazy dad, what am I telling my kids about the
creator of the universe? I'm telling them God's lazy.
He'll get around to it when he feels like he should.
When I go to work and I say I'm going to do something and I
don't do it, what? What am I telling the people I
work with or the people I'm working for?
I'm telling them that God may come in whenever he feels like
it. He may respond to that text
message whenever he feels like it.
Whenever I'm talking with my wife and I'm just distant and
I'd rather be scrolling some dumb YouTube real and she has
some a conversation that really needs to be had and I'm just
absent and distant. What am I telling my wife about
the God of the universe? He'll listen to you when he
feels like it. Yeah, he'll he'll hear you but
not actually listen to you. Whenever we're in fighter group
or in community group and we're just kind of distant and we're
not participating, we're just showing up.
What are we telling each other about the God of the universe?
That he's here, but he's not active.
And so it's convicting to know that we are as humans created in
the image of God. And spoiler alert, sin comes
into the world and all that. So we'll get to that later.
We're just going to like, we don't know about that yet, but
if we know that we are God's mobile statues here on earth
that were created to represent his rule and reign, that will
change the way that we look at every corner and pocket of our
lives. Everything from the workplace to
the kitchen, from the sanctuary to the basement is going to it
will change the way that we view our lives.
And we'll, we'll, we'll get into that a little bit more in our,
our application. But next we see that God just
got that ball of play DoH, pluck some of it out, makes a Dom,
makes humankind. But it didn't stop there, right?
We're this is a God of order, a God of detail.
Well, what is he do next? So we've, hey, we're going to
create man in our own, our own image after our likeness, not
based on our level of power, not based on our intellect, but just
to represent my rule and reign. I'm going to do this.
He created them. What does your Bible read?
Male and female there. OK, we're reading the same
Bible. All right.
We're we're in good shape. So the God of order, the God who
didn't need anything to create anything.
He just said he takes humankind and he orders it out even
further. Male and female, both equal
image bearers, both equal imagers, both equal mobile
statues going around representing God's rule and
reign. And again, the payoff to this
part is going to come. I don't get to do it.
So I don't get to have the fun with this.
But somebody greedier than I will get to talk more about
this. But he's.
But God orders out creation even more.
And we looked at especially last week, like according to its own
kind. So we saw God putting things
together according to its kind. Well, now God is just like he
separated the waters from above and the waters below.
God looks at humankind and he separates it into two
categories, male and female, both imagers, both mobile
statues. We'll see later on.
Different roles, but both of equal value, both of equal
purpose. Because they are created in the
image of God. Not because you can lift more on
the the deadlift then you can. Not because you can cook a
better meal than you can. Not because you can give birth
to babies and you can't. They're both created in the
image of God, male and female. So God further orders out his
creation. But God doesn't just create his
little statues just to sit still and be idle.
He doesn't just say, Hey, you go park yourself out here on this
corner and you just, if somebody passes by, you just let them
know that Yahweh, God has control over everything.
That's, that's not what he does, right?
He's created over these past five days leading up to this day
of day six. He's created this habitat for
them to live in. Everything in the sky,
everything on the ground, everything in the water.
He's created all that. And he could just say, hey,
guys, you just figure it out. Like just, you know, find
something that you want to do and as long as it's not bad,
I'll be fine with that. Well, that's not what God does
because again, he's not a God of chaos.
He's the God over chaos. He's the God of order.
And So what he tells them, and again this will come later on in
more detail, but as as God is having this conversation about
creating man, separating them, male and female, he says, 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 every other creeping thing that creeps on earth.
So the identity of a human is locked in, right?
You are an imager of God. That's your identity as a human.
But God also gives a vocation to his imagers.
He doesn't just say, just chill out, get in the lazy boy, crack
that lever, crop your feet up. He gives them a vocation, and
their vocation is to have dominion.
Dominion over everything that creeps and everything that
swarms, everything that flies. You have dominion over that.
This is important for us to know.
That God has given us each a vocation I.
Don't know if anybody. In here is like, really into
husbandry. I don't mean just being married,
but like taking care of livestock and all that.
Maybe there's somebody here. If you are, let me know.
I'll get some milk or some beef from you.
Well, the cruises, yeah, that's right.
We'll have to talk later. But most of us in this room are
not doing that. Most of us are working in
offices or classrooms or kitchens or living rooms or
wrestling rooms anyway. But this?
Aspect of. Dominion, right, And that that
word kind of has a negative connotation in our culture now,
but but that word dominion is to to take care of.
God has entrusted his people. His imagers hear from page one
of the Bible to take care of the things that he has created.
He's calling his people into his work.
Look at all that I've created for you.
What I want you to do is I want you to take care of it.
I want you have authority over it, just as I have authority
over you. But I'm calling you into my
family business and my family business is taking care of the
things that I have created. And it's often.
Easy to detach our vocation from our identity, or to find more
worth in our vocation than we do in our identity and if.
We find our identity. In our vocation, then we're
going to lose all sorts of beauty and goodness and truth,
because what happens when we don't do things the way that
we're supposed to do, but we're just crushed?
We're just. We're we're left feeling
useless. We look.
In the mirror, we're like. Oh, man, yeah, I, yeah, I messed
that up. I I don't know what to do.
And so these. Things go hand in.
Hand, if you don't properly understand your identity, you're
not going to properly understand your vocation, right?
I'm not. Just a a father.
Because I procreated, right? I could just be my identity and
I did vocation like I just, I created you.
So you're here. What good is that?
Or if I never tell my kids that I love them and be invested in
their lives and I fully live out my identity as their father and
I'm just like, well, I, you know, I paid the bills, washed
your clothes, put food on the table.
That's enough. Like I've lost the sight of my
identity is God has called me to love you and to provide for you
and to care for you and to be here.
But, but you just need to know that I'm your dad and I love
you. If we detach identity from
vocation, it's like rowing a boat.
With only one oar. On one side and we're just going
to be swimming, Sir, just starting around in in circles,
but God. Gives his people.
A vocation as well. And you all know that.
And we'll get to this in Chapter 3, but I.
Can't talk about this without. Talking about what comes later,
but sin enters the picture and it Mars everything it's.
Messed up our understanding. Of what it means to be created
in the image of God. It's messed up our relationship
with God. We are put put out of joint with
with God. And it's messed up our
understanding of. Vocation, we, all of us, we, we
still strive in areas of life and a lot of times it's where we
want to. That may be at a step with our
vocation, but we will, we will all find areas where we're
trying to create, we're trying to take care of, we're trying to
do, and they are not on the path that God has designed us to live
in. So sin has.
Come has come in. And has ravaged things for us
and from us. And is working against us.
So what do we do? What do we do with this truth
that we are? Creating the image of God and
we've been given a vocation by God.
What do we do with these two truths now that sin is in the
picture? Because right now everything is
good, everything is whole. There's Shalom.
Everything is working in harmony with with each other.
But you and I sitting here today in 20. 26 We know that.
Things aren't working together, that there is a lack of Shalom.
People are fighting with each other, that our brains are
fighting against ourselves like things are broken.
So what do we do with this? How do we reconcile identity and
vocation? On this side of Genesis.
Chapter 1. But we need somebody to come in
and. Solve this problem and a lot of
us have tried to solve these problems of understanding who we
are. These the problem of what am I
supposed to do? Like what am I created to be?
We, we try to solve those problems on our own, whether it
be with a substance, whether it be with work, whether it be
like, if only I can get married, then I'll actually live out who
I am. Or only if I can have kids, then
I can live out who I'm supposed to be.
Or oh, if I get this promotion, then I'll be able to be who I'm
supposed to be. We've all tried in different
areas of our lives to try to figure out and and try to define
our identities and define our vocation, the brothers and.
Sisters, the good news? Is that God has already defined
that for you. You're his imager and he has
called you into his family business.
But what do we do with? The sin issue.
What do we do with knowing? OK, yes, Andrew, I hear what
you're saying. These two things are true.
Identity, vocation, great. But the world is broken.
What do I do? Well, we Sunday school answer
look to Jesus. He was the one member of the
Trinity, took on flesh, and lived the human life as a
perfect human. Totally, perfectly.
He knew his. Identity.
He knew his vocation, and not single, not not a single moment
did Jesus slip up. Not a single.
Moment Did he forget his? Identity.
Jesus is the the the truer and better Adam.
He's the better human. He took on flesh and.
Entered into this broken world and showed us what it looks like
to to live life out of the identity of being created in the
image of God and being a part of God's business.
And so one of. My favorite passages of the
scripture, which I have a lot in my students used to make fun of
me because I'd say this is my favorite part, but it is found
in Second Corinthians chapter 5 and verses 16 to 21.
So This is why Jesus came. To live the perfect.
Human life, the apostle Paul says from now on, therefore, we
regard no one according to the flesh.
Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh,
we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creation, right?
So we just looked at the first creation of humans.
Things got messed up because of sin and because of death.
But now if you were in Christ, you are a new creation.
So if you're sitting here this morning and you have placed your
faith in Jesus and you were following Him, and you love him,
He's your hope and comfort in life and in death.
You're a new creation. Jesus came to restore that
identity that has been marred and that has been broken and
that you're still, you were still trying to figure out on
your own. Jesus has come to show you what
it means to be human. He gave his own body up for
that. So the old.
Has passed away. And behold, the new has come.
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to
Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to
Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and
entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His
appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of
Christ. Be reconciled to God for our
sake. He made him to be sin who knew
no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
So I love this passage because again, it goes back to identity
and vocation. You're a new creation in Christ
Jesus, and you've also been made his ambassador, his rolling
around, moving statue in Christ. We have the.
Restoration of our identity and of our vocation.
And this, this plays out in a, in a bunch of ways.
And just here's the few that I'll I'll roll with before
before I close. But the first category is.
Understanding your identity and your vocation.
It changes how you view yourself.
Changes how you view yourself. When you struggle, when you.
Feel misunderstood? When you look in the mirror,
growing. Up as a homeschooler who?
Moved around like moving back to the moment that was like my 30th
move of my life. I constantly feel like I'm
misunderstood by people so I like I.
Have got this chip on. My shoulder.
And so if someone doesn't. Understand me and the way that I
want them to understand me. Like it's easy for me to be
like, well, what's the point, right?
It's easy for me to just to get to that sort of a place because
I've lost sight of my identity. I'm creating the image of God
and He's giving me a vocation. The second category I.
Would say is how you view others.
If every human being in. The world viewed.
One another as creating the. Image of God. 99% of the world.
'S problems would just go away. Racism would not be in.
Existence because we would say we're both creating.
The image of God doesn't. Matter what we look like, we're
both creating. The image of God we're.
Both here to represent his rule and reign.
Wars would not exist if we wouldn't be in this.
Well, if I don't take this land, then our land is going to be
compromised. And so we have all this fighting
over land and over natural resources because humans do not
look at each other as created in the image of God.
Politics would be useless. If we saw each other as created
in the image of God, there would not be a Republican, Democrat
divide. We would say you're creating the
image of God. I'm waiting for new creation.
There's not going to be, there's going to be no voting in new
creation. It's going to be awesome.
And then church membership. Man, how, if we value each other
and saw each other as created in the image of God, how that would
radically transform our Sunday gatherings, our community
groups, our membership meetings, our fighter groups.
And one, one of the things that the pastoral team recites each
week is there, there's a line in it and it says we give each
other the benefit of the doubt. It's hard to give.
Each other the benefit of. The doubt whenever you view
yourself as superior to the other person.
So whenever you view yourself. As a Co equal imager of God,
it's really easy to. Give the benefit of the.
Doubt. So that's my application.
For you there, just think through it, I'm creating the
image of God. How does that how does property
understanding that in my vocation, how does that
radically transform my life? I work for a non profit as well
and it's just people looking for things to solve problems and
they don't. Understand that they're.
Creating the image of God. They get it, get their electric
bill paid, and it does. It does them good, gives them
creature comforts, but it doesn't change the trajectory of
their life because they've lost sight of the fact that they were
created in the image of God and that they can change because of
Jesus.