Who are We?

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Will you please turn over in your Bibles with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. First Corinthians chapter 15, if you're using your pew Bibles you'll find that on page 1022. I was explaining to someone this morning that we are We just finished up First Peter.

Normally, you know I like to go through books of the Bible, but one of you asked, and the session listened, that we would go through a series of topical sermons on different questions that you've had. And so, as I've kind of compiled various questions I've received from the congregation, I thought to have a few weeks of working through, who are we? Who are we as people? What are we supposed to be doing? And where are we going? So we're going to have a series of different sermons. Today's kind of laying the foundation, but then we're going to be talking about who we are in our body. Why does our body matter? What is our soul? What is a judgment day? What is heaven? What's hell? What's the intermediate state? What's the new heavens and the new earth? And so we'll be working through some of those questions over the next few weeks. So this morning we'll be laying the foundation starting at 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

Please turn with me to God's word now. Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which you also are saved, if you hold fast to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you, first of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. and that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve, after that he was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that he was seen by James, then by all the apostles, Then, last of all, he was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And His grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was in me. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Now if Christ has preached that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up if, in fact, the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen, and if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile.

You are still in your sins. And also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive by each one in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ at his coming.

Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom of God, the Father, when he puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, though he has put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death, for he has put all things under his feet. But when he says all things are put under him, it is evident that he who put all things under him is accepted. Now when all things are made subject to him, then the Son himself will also be subject to him who put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead? And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? I affirm, by the boasting in which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If in the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me?

If the dead do not rise, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Do not be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. Awake to righteousness and do not sin, for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. But someone will say, how are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that will be. but mere gain, perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as he pleases, and to each seed its own body. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds.

So also are celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies. But the glory of the celestial one and the glory of the terrestrial one is another. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars. For one star differs from another star in glory.

So also is the resurrection of the body. The body is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.

And so it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterwards the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust. And as is the heavenly man, so are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man.

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.

Prayer for Illumination

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." This ends this portion of the reading of God's Word. Let's pray.

Sermon

Father, your Word does not return void. Your Spirit works powerfully through your Word. Father, you teach us, you correct us, you rebuke us, you train us in righteousness. Father, we pray that your spirit would equip us for every good work. We pray that you would do a heart surgery this morning. Lord, that you would engrave your words upon our souls with a pin of lead. Lord, we pray that we might know who you are and know who we are. Father, conform us to your word. Help us, Lord, we need your spirit. In Jesus' name, amen.

I need to warn you this morning I am going to talk quickly. I have a fire hose in my hand and I'm expecting you to drink. I'm not going to expect you to be able to get everything and I'm not going to slow down because I don't want to stick in the weeds all day.

I want to move quickly and so we're going to talk about who is God and who are we and why in the world do we exist? This is a huge question. Why do people exist? The world is constantly trying to tell you what is good and what is beautiful and what is true. The world is trying to constantly pump you with culture and books and TV and YouTube and TikTok and Reels and everything else to tell you who you are, how you're going to be happy, and what your life is supposed to be about. But my question is, what does God say? What does the Word of God tell us?

Because this is the deepest question that we're constantly wrestling with, and it's not abstract. What people answer with this question is what determines our loss. Determines what's taught in schools. Determines how your workplace will run. Determines your relationships, your values, and your identity. So it's not just philosophical trivia. It affects how we raise our kids. and what we latch onto for hope for eternity. So I need you to know first of all that you are living in a world competing with different views of humanity. These aren't just theories. I remember listening to a teacher, it may have been R.C. Sproul or someone else, and they were walking along the road one day, and they met a man who was sweeping a driveway, and they asked him about his life.

And he found out that he was a refugee from Nazi Germany. He had to flee Nazi Germany. And he asked him, why did you have to flee Nazi Germany? Are you Jewish? And he said, no, I'm not Jewish. He said, why did you have to leave? He said, well, you see, I was a philosopher. He said, why would that matter? And the man told him, no, because see in Germany people understood that philosophy does matter.

And that what we think about life, and what life is supposed to be, and if I thought differently than them, I should have been sent to the gas chambers with the Jews, and so I had to leave. These different philosophies or worldviews matter. The first philosophy that you'll get is one that a ton of people hold on to, but maybe if you go up to Iowa City and you go under the first Golden Dome, you might find it at the University of Iowa or some place where they have big heads and large vocabularies. This is philosophical idealism. This is that your human essence is you are a body and a mind or a body and a soul, but what really matters is actually your soul and your intellect, not your body.

Socrates was talking to some of his friends as he was going to die. Plato was writing down this in one of his writings. And Socrates is speaking to one of his friends. And he says, don't you know that the lovers of philosophy, the lovers of wisdom, they desire so much to be released from the prison of the body.

It's like we're chained by the concerns of life. And what life is really about is chasing after truth. This is where Descartes, later on, as he was trying to figure out, what am I? How do I know I exist? He came up with the phrase, cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore, I am. Because I'm a thinking person, I'm an actual person. I hate to tell you, you can't be a thinking person without a brain and bones and a liver. You can't be alive.

This type of philosophical idealism saying that you are essentially just your brain or just your soul has two different, interestingly, it goes down a road and it goes to a fork in the road towards one of two directions typically. The first direction is that of hedonism. Hedonism, just enjoy all the pleasures of life since your body doesn't matter anyways. So you want to just go and experience everything that's good. We're going to get to Ecclesiastes where the writer talks about that once we get done with this series. The other side of the fork of that road is the exact opposite. It's a type of asceticism.

That I don't want to be encumbered by anything of this world and I really want to just deal with my thoughts and this is how you get to monasticism. This is how you get, I really want to be one with God and with my thoughts and with my soul and so I need to detach myself from everything bodily, humanly possible and I need to even punish my body to remind myself that what I really am is just a soul. All sorts of early church sins came up in this. If you've ever wondered why Roman Catholic priests are not allowed to marry, you've found the philosophy behind it.

But who else are you? What other philosophies are given to you? Well, the second one is biological naturalism. It's not that your soul doesn't matter, it's that you don't have a soul. There's all sorts of people who will say this. I remember another, it might have been R.C. Sproul again, so he was talking to a coroner playing golf one day, and he said, you know I've dissected thousands of bodies, you know what I've never found? A soul. Why do you look for the immaterial amongst the material?

But there's this idea that we are nothing more than a sack of cells and firing electrical synapses. You are nothing more than a product of chance and of luck. That each cell in your body is nothing more than a genetic mutation that somehow made you a little bit better than all the other genetic mutations.

And that made you more available to reproduce. And that is how we became who we are. And we're nothing more than that. You can find this in popular anti-theists like Richard Dawkins. I don't have to go that far. You're able to find this pretty easily, people who believe these things.

All your problems and lives can just be reduced down to chemical and physical issues. You've got a problem with your mood? Well, your mood is just chemicals, and you're brain firing, and so just take this certain medicine, and that's the only problem. You can just take these pills, and you'll do better. Oh, you've got this problem?

I've got a biological explanation for it. There's even a book written in the 1970s called, and I don't want you to read this book, it's literature that's basically pornography, The Naked Ape, where this guy is a zoologist in England and he goes and he looks at societies and he starts, why do societies behave a certain way as they do? And he essentially takes his evolutionary model and he says, oh, well, This is why people behave in cities this way, because they're essentially like animals. And I study animals in the zoo. And so this is how people interact in the wild of the world.

I'm just going to tell you, it's full of, even a whole bunch of very far left liberal philosophical commentators said this is nothing more than fantasy. It's pornographic zoologist fantasy. But the point is, that's where biological naturalism takes you. Nothing's more than your evolution and your desire to reproduce.

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet lose his soul? From the lips of Jesus. Others don't want to go that far, right? They might say you have a biology, yes, but the world is ultimately about material. And then the soul is more seen as a place of desire, but a desire for what?

Where human worth in materialism is seen in your accumulation of possessions, your wealth. Whether you're on the idealist of the Marxism side or the idealist on the purest capitalist side, all life can be boiled down to a desire for the accumulation of stuff, of capital, of wealth.

Marxism sees us as a class constantly being oppressed, fighting for economic freedom. All of history in the Marxist materialist understanding is that there are three different classes of people. Those who are the wealthy and they hold all the power and the capital and they are oppressing everyone else. The middlemen who do their dirty work and those who are at the lower class constantly fighting for economic freedom. And the world's history is nothing but this dialectical circle of constantly fighting this system, and fighting this system, and fighting this system, and fighting this system.

Interestingly, if you look at Marxist cultures, all of them still end up eating themselves, because those who are the powerful running the communists end up with all the power and the wealth, and suppressing the lower people who are poor anyways, and there's another overtake. So, anyways, materialism. But capitalism, pure capitalism, sees it the same way.

There's a whole bunch of people sitting in boardrooms right now in the C-suite who would love to make you think that if you just bought this car, you would have this ideal life. If we were just watching a show last night, and we pay for the lowest tier of the streaming service, so we get all these commercials, and there's this Toyota commercial that keeps popping up and popping up and popping up, and I've been joking with the kids, if we just buy that truck, we could have this water balloon fight on the beach. If we just buy that car, it literally drives underneath this rainbow, and life will just be happy. If you just get the stuff, your life will be filled with joy.

Rich man walks away from Jesus, sad. What must I do to inherit the kingdom of God? It gives him a whole bunch of moral things. All these I've done for my youth, right? He's honored his parents. He's never killed anybody, anything like this. And then Jesus puts his finger on the topic. Sell everything you have and give it to the poor. And he walked away very sad because he had great wealth. See, Jesus knew that his personhood was more than his wealth. But he couldn't see past the money in his bank.

The fourth worldview computing to tell you who you are is radical individualism or relativism. Right? I define my own truth. Your identity is your own self-creation. You make yourself. The ancient philosopher Protagus wrote, a man is the measure of all things. A more modern author, Michael Foucault wrote, essentially, I'm going to summarize what he wrote, truth isn't discovered, it is constructed by power structures. Identity is nothing more than a product of social forces. and morality is contextual. To understand who we truly are, we need to deconstruct all that is known and hold power in and over us.

Do you see? You are just a product of your own society and you need to make yourself. Friedrich Nietzsche would say you need to become the Uberminster, you need to become the Superman, you need to create your own identity, be your own self. Maybe that's a little too highbrow for you. Just go to TikTok. You do you. Live your truth. That's good for you, but it's not good for me. Or, as my little girl would love to sing Elsa's words, let it go. No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I am free. self-made identity, throw off social norms, self-expression, without external authority, just follow your heart.

Flies at odds with what God says in Ephesians chapter four. There are real absolutes in life, and there's real absolutes in life because God himself has said it. Let him who steals, steal no more, but labor with his hands that he may give to those who have need. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but only that which is good for necessary edification, that you might impart grace to the hearers. God says all sorts of things are evil and you must put them off and you must put on righteousness. Why? Because you weren't made to live in your sin. You weren't made to live in your own contextual morality where whatever you're living in, that's what you're saying is okay.

I remember having a conversation, no joke, this apologetics encounter. I went to this guy's house, he's actually a really good photographer, and as he and I were talking about this, we got to this place where he was saying, no, no, no, I don't think you understand. Morality is completely dependent upon where you live and the people you're surrounded by. And I was kind of confused by that because he seemed to be a pretty decent guy. He lived in a really nice house.

And as I was kind of talking to him, I just asked, so were the Nazis wrong to gas six million Jews? The culture of the time in their land was saying this was the right thing to do. They needed to clean the race. According to the predominant philosophy of the day of their culture, this was okay. Are you saying that? And he realized when he took his idea to the end, he did not want to say that. He said, ah, I don't know. He wouldn't give up on the philosophy.

Radical individualism and relativism does not give us a whole self that tears down. It doesn't impart love, but it imparts selfishness. It's not who we were designed to be. Next one, sociological collectivism. Identity is defined by our social structures. Who you are is completely defined by your family, your ethnicity, your class. Again, Foucault would write, the individual is a product of group-based oppression and historical structures. And the goal is social liberation.

And you can find this in things nobly portrayed, like the Marvel movie. Black Panther, right? Where you have this tribalism, right? Who you are is based upon your tribe. Wakanda forever. This mythology, and it is a myth. But even as some of my friends in the African American community, I'll hear them at times, they'll say, Wakanda forever. And I'm like, guys, it's a myth. It's an extra biblical myth.

There is no Wakanda. But the point is it's given Americans this identity that, look, we're of worth and we're of value. But their worth and their value isn't their skin colors because they were made in the image of God. Created with dignity. Not in a myth. The other side of that is Star Trek's the Borg. You do not resist. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. It's the beehive mind. That if we're just supposed to be a society, if that's our identity, we just get along with what we're supposed to do as a group.

It's interesting though what the Bible says, 2 Corinthians 5.10, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. There is a reality of corporate sin. There is a sense in which America can sin. But at the last great judgment day, Each one of us stands for our own sin. The last existential absurdism, this is the scariest one for me. Life is meaningless. Life has no inherent meaning. You have no inherent value or worth. You make your own meaning.

I remember as I was reading one of these existentialists, this was years ago, I was reading John Paul Sartre's book, The Myth of Sisyphus. And he goes on for page after page, getting to the point that life is pointless. So he starts contemplating, why don't we just commit suicide?

I remember having to, it was such a dark book that at a point I just had to put the book away and I had to go pray. There was no hope in the book. But it was assigned for a class so I had to read it. So I picked it back up and I finished reading it a day or two later.

And what was his answer to the pointlessness of life? Why didn't Sartre just commit suicide? Because he could live. And he could have experiences. And he could feel. And feeling and experiences were enough to give him a sense of identity in his life. A sense of purpose and meaning. Do you understand now why People think that it's okay in Canada and in certain states like Washington and the United States that if someone starts to lose their mind and they can no longer choose their experiences, the most loving thing to do is to give them Hemlock, to give them a pill of poison, the same type of poison that Socrates was forced to drink and to commit suicide. Brothers and sisters, God knew you before the foundation of the world. He created you in His image. He's given you dignity and purpose and identity that's not fixed upon your experiences, but fixed upon who He has made you to be.

Second Point

See, this is where the Bible just stands in stark contrast to all of these. The Bible, this is the second point, I know we spent a long time there, the rest of this is going to flow fast, so buckle up. There's a creator-creation distinction, and this is a biblical foundation.

The Bible begins with God as the creator. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It is God who created all things. It is God who, and I did not plan any of this, as our catechism question this morning said, who created all things of nothing. Ex nihilo, God spoke. And by the word, the power, the son, came into existence. God, the creator, created. And this is said dozens of times, just four different examples. And the Hebraic mind, this is foundational, that God is the creator. Psalm 100 verse 3, know that the Lord, He is God. It is He who has made us and not we ourselves.

Ecclesiastes 12.1, remember now your creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come. And the years draw near when you say, I have no pleasure in them. Young people, you need to learn early on that God is your creator. Learn it now, learn it early. Isaiah chapter 40 verse 28, have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.

Job 33 verse 4, the Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. There's a reason why Jewish people will regularly pray our maker and our creator, our God in heaven. To be a human is to be a creature. We're dependent, we're accountable, and we were made for a purpose. But note, did you notice in Genesis chapter 1 verse 26, that God made us according to something or like something. Look with me at Genesis chapter 1. Elder Manring read this to us, Genesis chapter 1 verses 26 and 27. Then God said, let us make man in our image. according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, 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. You were made body and soul in the likeness and image of God. What did God do? God got down, the text is really fun. It's almost like God got down on his hands and knees, like a kid playing at the beach in the sand, and he puts together, he forms man's body out of the ground, his body, and he breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and he becomes a living being. Body and soul made in the image of God.

Relational pattern upon the Trinity. Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. This is the Father speaking to the Son through the Spirit. This is the Trinity who created man. God is a relational being within the Trinity and we are made creational and relational beings. He made us moral, capable of righteousness and justice. He's made us vocational. He's made us representatives on the earth, on His earth. God bless them. He told them to be fruitful and multiply, verse 28. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

God gives them a cultural mandate, right? They're there to go and they're there to do things, right? God didn't just make Adam and Eve to sit around like what we see in Greek paintings of people, you know, they're just laying on their beds eating the grapes, right? That's not what God designed in the Garden of Eden. No, they were to subdue the earth. They were to work, they were to create, they were to use their minds.

This is one of the amazing things that he's done. God, the most imaginative and creative person in the world, in the entire universe, has made you with the capacity to think, to create, to cultivate. I mean, one of the things I love doing is going to your old houses. I have to fight covetousness when I do this. But I go to your houses because some of you have the most well-manicured gardens I've ever seen. I can think of some of you right now who have gardens where it's like everything's in a perfect row, and you have all the weeds out, and you know why different plants go with different things, and you have trellises and other stuff.

And I'm like, how do you make this so beautiful? My garden's a weed patch. I just gave up on it. But you know how to take dominion. Some of you, I go to your houses, and it's like, some of you have remodeled your houses, and it's, I walk in there, I'm like, how did you make, this was in chaos, it was in ruins, it was falling down, and you took wood and nails and paint, and that was beautiful.

God gave you that creative mind. God gave you that ability. And when you do that, you are showing this commandment right here that you are subduing the earth. You're having dominion over the fish of the seas, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

One of the things I love seeing also is I love seeing some of y'all with your animals. I love seeing those of you who are really good with your animals. When you're able to tell a dog, come, and they come to you. My great Pyrenees don't care what I say, most of the time. But it's amazing when people are able to work with animals.

I like going out, even sometimes I'll hear a farmer, and they'll just make a certain sound or a call, and all of a sudden, all the cows will run to them. How do you do that? How do they know that when they hear the farmer, they know that food is coming?

This is part of the creation mandate, the cultural mandate of taking dominion. Dominion doesn't mean domination, it doesn't mean that, oh, dominion means I kill every single bird in this species. No, no, no, no, it's stewardship. We don't own it, we're created, God's given it to our hands to care for it, to cultivate it, to make it better. And we do this whether it's in culture, family, work, art, plumbing, farming, whatever you're called to do. We live lives to declare God's glory and the goodness of our God. And he's made us image bearers. A psychosomatic union, that's a $5 word for you, psychosomatic union. I'm not saying you're crazy by saying you're a psychosomatic union.

Psyche is a Greek word for soul. Right? And Soma is a word for body. You are a two-part person. Body and soul. You are a whole person. You are not just your body and you are not just your soul. You are a whole person. Body and soul are in unity. Your body is not a prison house locked down in the chains of your... or locking down and chaining your soul. Your embodiment matters. Your body is good.

God created your body. And He even created your body destined for resurrection. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 13 through 20, I'll let you read that on your own some other time. Your body is for the Lord. He redeemed you. When Jesus redeemed you, He did not just redeem your soul. He redeemed you as a whole person, body and soul.

You have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God with your body. He knit you together, Psalm 139, in your mother's womb. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Do you know that fool well? He's created you body and soul. He formed you and he intimately knows you.

Our bodies matter so much that Jesus Christ himself, the second person of the Trinity, took on the form of man. Incarnate. Took on a real body. So much so that in the epistle of 1 John, it would say that if anybody says that Jesus did not come in the flesh, let him be anathema. That which we have seen and that which we have heard and that which we have felt, we testify of him. Jesus came in the flesh for a reason, as a real man, because we really are body and soul and need redeemed body and soul. But it also means that if God's created us body and soul, if he's the one who has designed our life, he also gets to design other parts and to declare other parts to us. Notice again, 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. God made you with the gender that you were born with, male or female. It is binary. We don't back away from it because that's what scripture says.

You may not feel like you're in the right body. You may not feel like things are right. Sometimes I don't feel like I'm full and then I get like I've got an upset stomach I'm going to throw up later. Some people feel like they shouldn't have a limb. They shouldn't go to a doctor and have that limb cut off. It doesn't align with reality.

God is the one who has created us, male and female, as a part of making us in his image. Gender is not a self-construct. Right, you see, that's all philosophical baggage that's brought in from these pagan philosophies. That somehow, and you'll even hear this in the transgender world, and I've tried to read a lot of their materials and try to be as sympathetic as I can, but one of the things that you'll find in transition story after transition story after transition story is, God made me wrong. The God who created you has never made a mistake in his entire being, and never will. And sometimes we have to wrestle with hard things and hard feelings in our life and conform our feelings and our wants and our desires to what He's said is good, not what we want.

He's created them in His own image, male and female. Men are not better than women, and women are not better than men. He created them in his image, but yet there is still complementary roles that we find in God's creation for man and woman, husband and wife. Jesus himself refers back to this creation story and says what God has joined together, let no man tear us under.

It's God who designed marriage. But we know that people sin against us, but just because people sin in these ways doesn't mean we just chuck out the system. But yeah, there's gonna be sin in marriage. There's always been sin in marriage, ever since the first instance of sin. What happened? Adam, where are you? Adam, where are you? We were naked, so we went and we hid. Who told you we were naked? Did you eat from the fruit? Well, yeah, but that woman you gave to me, the first sin, blame shifting in the marriage. Does that mean we throw out marriage?

Jesus did not. Peter Lombard, one of the medieval theologians, wrote about this when he said, you know, woman was made from the rib of man. This is Genesis chapter 2. We're not there this morning, but Genesis chapter 2. She was taken out of the rib of man that she might be by his side, not out of his head that she would rule over him, nor under his feet that the man would stomp over the woman, but from his side that she might be a constant company and companion to him, a helpmate to him. God's given us the command to be fruitful and to multiply, just like he said to the animals, he said it to humans as well. Our sexuality was given as covenantal, fruitful, and intimacy expressed in the point of one flesh. And this is God's glorious design. But even that's been distorted, hasn't it? Even as God's made us people to procreate, it's not like having children was a surprise to God. No, He formed you, He knew your anatomy. But we twist this, don't we?

We go after our own sexual pleasures, our own desires, even just in our eyes and our minds. Jesus said if you've even lusted after a woman with your eyes, you've already committed adultery in your heart. So the desires, the passions are the problem. And then you act on it physically. And when those are taken to their full extent, we find it in Romans chapter 1.

When somebody says, I don't care what God says, I'm going to do what I want. and you worship the created, in our culture, me, my desires, my want, more than the creator, you end up with going against what God says here. You end up with things like bestiality, homosexuality, pedophilia.

It's not what God's designed us for. So we find ourselves As we move from Genesis chapter one, and we'll go through eventually into Genesis chapter 21, God created us with an original innocence. This is a fourfold state of man. God created us. Initially, we were good, very good. He created us, as Augustine said, passe non peccare, able not to sin. Adam and Eve did not have to sin. They could, but they didn't have to. It was possible for them to not sin, and yet they did.

But ever since then, From then until God shows grace, Genesis chapter 3, we have a fallen nature. We're sinful people. Adam as our covenant head, and then of our own volition, of our own will, we sin. We become, as again Augustine says, non passe, non peccare, not able not to sin. We sin every day in our thoughts, in our words, and in our deeds. We rebel against what God tells us to do. We say, we're not going to do it. And when he tells us not to do something, we say, oh yeah? Watch me. We may not do it so blazingly, but every time we sin, that's what we're doing.

But yet, for those who have been redeemed in Christ, there's a third-fold state of man, and that's that we are redeemed in Christ. We are brought back to that place of the Garden of Eden. Brothers and sisters in Christ, you are back to able not to sin. You are able not to sin. Christian, I'm telling you, Romans chapter six is true in your life. You don't have to sin. If the spirit of Christ is living in you, you are not a slave to sin, but a slave unto righteousness. You have a different master, the Lord Jesus Christ, not the sinful desires of the flesh. You do not have to sin, and yet, you will find yourself in this life in the same place as Adam and Eve, won't you? Or you'll still sin.

And anybody who says, well, I've been a Christian so long and so good that I don't sin anymore, run away. Or just go talk to their kids or their spouse. But we look forward to that great day that Romans chapter 15 was talking about when the imperishable will put on, when the perishable will put on imperishable, when we will come to the place of perfection, a state of glory, non passe peccare, not able to sin. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know a world without sin. But I gotta tell you, I'm excited. I'm excited for that great day when the trumpet blasts and our king returns and we will no longer be able to sin. Our entire story is about the recovery and exaltation of the image of God in Christ for God's glory. Brothers and sisters, you are image bearers of the Most High God.

That though you may be frail and weak, the God who put the glories in the sky The one who painted the sky with all the galaxies, all the stars that display his glory, is mindful of you. And his thoughts about you are innumerable. He created you. He created you for his glory.

That's who you are. So when you find the world trying to pull you away, trying to convince you of something else, remember your God. Remember who he said you are. And remember even the depths of his love for you and that while you were even yet still a sinner, Christ died for you. That you might live with him forever. That's who you were created to be.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. God, we pray that you would please lead us and guide us in your ways. Reorient our hearts. Redirect our relationships. Lord, give us renewed purpose for our lives. Let us embrace the identity that you have given us. Lord, we need you. Please do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.