God’s Purpose for People - Part A

The question what is manner. Who are we as one of the most fundamental questions.

In fact, I noticed the other day Internet survey that said all the questions that people ask on the Internet, the number one question is what is the purpose of life and affect what is man, why, what is the reason for our existence.

A lot of people wonder of the meaning of life on purpose today on connect with Skip Skip shares insight from Scripture about God's purpose for all people including you. Before we begin, here's a resource that will help you pursue a life of faith and purpose even in uncertain times people find comfort in the status quo.

Others just can't wait to challenge it. If this were a recovery meeting, I would begin by saying my name is Skip and I'm a nonconformist. You go with the flow swim against the current district is going against the status quo can be difficult, requires that Daniel shows one person's willingness to defy what's normal.

I like to think of it this way when the ways of life came crashing down. Daniel decided to go surfing, to write these waves. These waves are the will of God for my life to learn how to master these things and I want to get propelled forward. Learn to soar above the status quo defined normal way of saying thanks for your gift of $35 and more to help connect more for the God's word will also include the booklet 100 and I hear for Rick Warren. These two resources will help you stand out from the crowd for God's glory connectwithskip.com/for to get online securely today or call 892 1888 Genesis chapter 1 to get into the teaching. Once upon a time, a little boy found Eagles have refounded. He placed in the nest of a prairie chicken so the eaglet hatched but grew up in this environment of prairie chickens so as it grew, thinking it was a prairie chicken. It started doing what prairie chickens do it dog in the dirt for seeds and insects clucked and cackled like prairie chickens do.

It flew in short increments furiously flapping its wings but not going very far and it did that for years and one day when the evil was very very old.

It looked up in the sky and notice this magnificent bird soaring overhead hardly beating its wings as it glided through the atmosphere and it said what is that. And one of the other prairie chickens.

Neighbors said that is an eagle. It is the chief of all the birds but then quickly said, but don't give it a second thought you could never be like him so. The Eagle never gave it a second thought, and died thinking it was a prairie chicken Little fable is by way of introduction to simply say that we've been lied to by this culture of this culture has basically said y'all a bunch of prairie chickens you're an accident you're apelike though advanced in your evolutionary stages, but you are simply an animal and accident a cosmic accident, when in fact you were meant to soar like an eagle.

You are uniquely made as gods crowning creation of 3000 years ago David who wrote the many of the Psalms asked a question that has been asked reverberated through the ages by a number of people including philosophers and that is the question what is man is man. Psalm eight David so when I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained what is man that I question what is man is what I want to talk to about today. Not everybody answers that question the same way, what is it mean to be human. One of the great philosophers Immanuel Kant was taking the long summer walks as he often did a was walking in his neighborhood, stop in the park sat on the bench for several hours just sat there and the policeman saw him and walked over to him and wanted to know what is sees what you doing and Kant said I'm thinking a policeman inquired further and said who are you and Emmanuel caught that great philosopher turned to the police officer and said that's precisely the problem that I've been thinking about who am I now the study of that is called anthropology.

Anthropology, the study of humanity mankind behavior practices origin past and present, the question what is manner. Who are we is one of the most fundamental questions. In fact, I noticed the other day and Internet survey that said of all the questions that people ask on the Internet, the number one question is what is the purpose of life and affect what is man, why are we here, what is the reason for our existence. Some people answer that question two different lenses some answer to the lens of philosophy. Some answer to the lens of biomechanics and so you get a variety of answers, but let me throw up a smattering of what people have said, we are so Mark Twain said man the machine man the machine very very basic level, Aristotle called us a political animal. I suppose that is true, especially in the next coming weeks or more of us are acting like political animals. Ben Franklin said a toolmaking animal blaze Foss call the French philosopher said, man is a read the most feeble thing in nature, and I wanted to throw up what Buck meant. Mr. Fuller said he will. Who's that guy that guy invented the geodesic dome.

He was a futuristic thinker and architect listen to his description of humanity.

The human is a self balancing 28 jointed adapter biped and electrochemical reduction, plant did not make you feel great.

That's what you are.

Listen all of those things. That's like telling an eagle. You're a prairie chicken that is not the full scope that is not what it means to be human.

So we need better answers than that to be anthropological. You must first be theologically rough to discover where you came from and if you are created what that creator's original intention was for you. That's how you answer the question what it is to be human.

So let us discover in the book of Genesis. What it means by three distinct stages that is God's creation of man and God's reflection in man and finally God's interaction with man.

Let's begin at the beginning Genesis chapter 1 verse one the God's creation of man were told in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, let there be light and there was slight taken out of verse 26 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 over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth know that verse, verse 26 is the verse of primary reference meeting. It's the first time we discover God's intention for what he created in mankind its aversive primary reference when it comes to humanity. This is God's original intention God created people artists have depicted that for centuries. I want to show you probably know most famous depiction of that you seen that before. This is the lease and pictures you see that this is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome. This is painted in 1508 to 15, 12, 500 years ago put up there by Michelangelo. Spent 44 years on a 70 foot scaffold painting the ceiling. There's a lot of images on the ceiling, but the two most prominent ones are Adam on the left, and God on the right.

It's a picture of creation. It is Genesis 126 put an art form so we have a picture of Adam lying on the ground and sort of languidly with his hand out not really purposefully just sort of hanging in there in midair is what art curators will point out but God moving toward man. He's the initiator. He has a more purposeful point because God is the one who's creating Adam now what what people do in looking at art like this and this is part of a vast ceiling is all say there are two images that dominate the scene. God and Adam and depending on your worldview, you will make more of one than the other.

So for instance if if you were a Greek thousands of years ago the Greek worldview was man centered anthropocentric religion and anthropocentric world. That was the mistake they made. They began with themselves and build outwardly an upward and as they wanted to find out their purpose.

They had to fill in a lot of gaps a lot of blanks they had to make stuff up.

So they came up with gods and goddesses. The whole Pantheon belief system of of of of beings that did things that explain why the world is the way the world is now all of that not all about but a lot of that comes from a philosopher, a Greek philosopher in the fifth century BC name Protagoras. Protagoras said man is the measure of all things. Man is the measure of all things. That's the worldview man centered anthropocentric all about us and they built their system outwardly. The Bible does not do that the Bible on the other hand is theocentric. God centered, because God initiated things.

So rather than looking at it and filling in the gaps with speculation and imagination like the Greeks did the Bible gives us revelation God explains to us what he did and what he meant to do in making mankind. There was a college class and I think was a biology class and the professor stated that the goal of the class was to instruct his students that the only hope of civilization is in the pursuit and application of scientific knowledge for this class is about. He said, and he, he explained to his students.

I have no room for God have no room for religion. I don't believe in metaphysics. This is science as all life is in the only hope for the future is that while at the end of the semester.

Each student wanted the professor to not only evaluate the student write a reference for the students future. So one of the students by the name of John did that and the professor gave this description of John. He said John biological description.

John is a living organism group vertebral auto class Mammalia order primates genus Homo species sapiens. Body structure, organs, tissues and cells. Protoplasm five organs of sight, taste, touch, sound and smell chemical description. A large quantity of carbon. Some gallons of H2O.

Various amounts of iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, sulfur, lime, nitrogen, and some mineral salts, psychological description. Mind, conscience, and unconscious, intellectual, emotional, volitional powers, various instincts, IQ 130. So far it's very accurate description of John scientifically, but it still does not define what it is to be human. So listen to the concluding paragraph of the professor. I hope John will fit as an admirable unit into the various machines, industrial and commercial, and so on make up our scientifically planned society, but regrettably I have serious misgivings about this. There is something in John that refuses to be cribbed cabined and confined and reaches out to a fulfillment beyond the capacity of a machinelike destiny to supply in his eager pursuit of scientific knowledge and passionate love of music as well as in the deep discontent to which he once confessed his inability to live up to his own ideals. It seems to me that John is on a quest that existence even in a four dimensional space-time continuing can never satisfy only give you my translation and Skip English he say we been telling John his whole life is a prairie chicken but John knows something else is up.

John believes that he's an eagle and he can fly so he he's not satisfied or something in John that reaches out beyond this so that takes me to my second stage here after God's creation of man. We have God's reflection in man and I want to zero in on these verses, verse 26 again, let us make man in our image, that's what I want to focus on. According to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him by the way the Bible uses that terminology and and references were made in the image of God six times male and female he created them.

Then God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth subdue it have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, see, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, every tree whose fruit yields seed to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food and it was so then God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good so evening and morning were the sixth day we have in Genesis 1 is essentially a summation of five days of creation and then a 65 days of creation, God made a bunch of stuff looked at it and said I like, or it's good on day six. He paused and he said I want to make something different.

I want to make something that reflects my image, my glory. It's amazing to think that when God wanted to think of something that would reflect his image. He made you yank no prairie chicken. If you're in the image of God to be in the image of God is to bear the reflection of God to be his representative on earth to Hebrew words here image and likeness. They roughly refer to the same thing there Hebrew words that refer to something that is similar but not necessarily identical similar but not identical, so one mirror house that Amira gives you an image you look at it give an image of yourself.

You may like it.

You may not. But it's an image you can orient the mirror in a different way and get an image of somebody else, you can see other things, that the image is in the mirror as our lives are oriented toward God. We can reflect the glory of God. What that means is I'm not just protoplasm. I'm not just a bunch of chemicals.

I am different from a dog or a cat or a whale or a spotted owl or an orangutan of always of the story. The man went to the zoo. He knew the zookeeper he goes to the Zune is going to all the little exhibits and he goes to an orangutan exhibit any notices that the orangutan is sitting there with two books, one in each hand. One is the Bible. The other is Darwin's origin of the species and you think of no way.

So he he starts talking out loud scares me. You can actually read. Can you orangutan looked at him is that of course I can. So the man said what do you understand what you're reading. The orangutan looked puzzle he said well I'm not so sure because this book.

Holding up the Bible says that I am my brother's keeper, but this book says I am my keepers brother and saw II have a conflict going on. Which is it you are made in the image of God.

God's informed us. Look at chapter 2 really quickly and again were just looking at a few verses but I really digging deep here. Chapter 2 of Genesis verse seven.

The Lord God formed man out of what does wait a minute, dust, dirt, that's pretty humbling dirt. Claude, the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground but breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became in Hebrew, a Nefesh soul, a living being is translated, the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed pretty humbling in one hand to realize the origins of a dirt Claude. Pretty amazing. On the other hand to think of the image of God.

So we have a combination something very low in something very high.

Let's call it dust and glory dust and glory. Combine yet physically speaking were made up of a bunch of chemicals and I remember in school. Some my teachers would say you know if you were to add up all of the chemicals in your body.

Your body would only be worth two dollars does it make a kid feel really good about himself. That's telling an eagle.

He's a prairie chicken and actually my teacher was wrong.

Today in the this day and age accounting for inflation. Your body chemicals worked out hundred and $60, but that's not the point. If you evaluate your life only in those terms, your speaking prairie chicken language not eagle talk so what is it mean to reflect God's image well there's a few things and I put them in your worshipful druggist and a touch on these four things. It means first of all, we are God's reflection in that we are rational beings we are rational beings, not, not always. Sometimes were quite irrational and erratic and crazy right now are in political season people get a whole lot of crazy going on right now but we are rational beings we have intellectual power. We can think we can learn we can research we can explain we can formulate flawed animals do not do this.

They cannot do this only TV animals do that okay I grew up with Mr. Ed, I thought that was the coolest thing in the world talking horse. I want to talking horse that only works on TV.

Disney characters can talk right Mickey Mouse can talk Donald Duck you can talk but not in real life. Only we can reason we can evaluate we can have original thought animals react to stimuli. We like God can create can make paintings and sculptures in music and we can imagine we can build that Skip the message from the series 2022. Skip to share how you can keep these teachings coming to you while connecting others to the gospel. Isn't it amazing that our sovereign God who created the universe longs to be our dear friend. We want many more people to enjoy this friendship with God and we would love for you to be a part of making that happen. Your gift today not only helps this ministry reach more people with God's word. It also keeps these messages that you love coming to you. Here's how you can give a gift today. Visit connectwithskip.com/donate to give your gift today that's connectwithskip.com/donate or call 800-922-1888.

Again, that's 800-922-1888 coming up tomorrow Skip Heitzigs of shares about a special purpose God has for you. God has given us that internal capacity. That's what prompts us to promote.

That's why your kids asked the my daddy like that. Then what happened there probably want to know your yearning beyond just St. Augustine put it so beautifully when he said, thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts are until they find their rest