God’s Purpose for People - Part B

God has given us that eternal pass that's what prompts us to probe. That's why your kids asked so many questions why daddy might lie that then what happens. That building there probably want to know more, beyond just St. Augustine so beautifully when he said, thou hast made us for thyself and our heart till they find their rest, God created people, not for his own amusement, or to abandon us to interact with us in today on connect with Skip Heitzig Skip shares of other special purpose God has for you know we want to tell you about a resource that will encourage you to look boldly for Jesus in a culture in need of truth and light is normal basic human instinct which you believe the children as young as three years old already want to follow the crowd and for the group of researchers counted at Duke University study Bible we learn that the most impact themselves by defying here. Skip, I think.

I think the Bible calls us to a holy defiance of the status quo. Paul the apostle said, do not be conformed to this world but be trans formed by the renewing of your mind, so to go from transform. Find out if my normal thanks to you when you get $35 or more to help expand his ministry today for direct line copies of these bold resources copies hundred 98 or give online securely connectwithskip.com/author of Genesis chapter 1 is rejoined Skip for today's American fuel and energy look at it as an image of yourself may like you can orient the mirror in a different way and get an image of somebody else see other things, 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 because of the Zune is going to all the little exhibits he goes to an orangutan exhibit any notices that the orangutan is sitting there with two books, one in each hand.

One is a Bible. The other is Darwin's origin of the species and is think of no so he he starts talking out loud scares me. You can't actually read again you orangutan looked at him said of course I can. So the man said what will do you understand what you're reading.

The orangutan looked puzzled.

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 keeper's 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 that I believe digging deep here. Chapter 2 of Genesis verse seven. The Lord God formed man out of what dust when 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 nest 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 but 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 does it mean to reflect God's image well there's a few things and I put them in your worship folder under skin to 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 wanted 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 we can make paintings and sculptures in music and we can imagine we can build.

We have relationships of love animals have instinct animals can mate animals can show affection, but that's not love you all know, I know my dog loves me. You are explaining a disruption in the endocrine system of the animal. Essentially that's about it. It's not love like on the relational level that we have.

We are rational beings like our creator. Another aspect of this is not only are we rational beings we are moral being. We have a sense of morality, a sense of justice and inner sense of right and wrong, just as God who made often times these binary comparisons. That's right, that's wrong, that's good, that's evil. That's just that's unjust that's righteous that's on righteous. We have a conscience.

It's part of our humanity is why humans battle with good and evil. My pets do not CS Lewis referred to this as the moral law. The moral law that people innately have a sense of just versus unjust. Animals don't do this. Animals respond to the fear of punishment or the hope of reward. But God put a moral law within us. Granted, it varies from culture to culture. There's a lot of programming that goes along with that, but in Romans chapter 1 verse 19, Paul writes for the truth of God is known to them.

That is to us in instinctively with his sense of morality comes a sense of destiny and a sense of accountability. The only reason we know the world is crooked. We look out of the mental world so messed up it so crooked is because we have in our conscience the idea of something being perfectly straight by which to compare it to.

That is the moral law. We would say without reservation, Mother Teresa is better than Adolf Hitler. We don't mean that she has a better posture than Adolf Hitler, or that her breath smells better than Adolf Hitler were speaking in moral comparisons that one has a better character than the other. We know this intuitively. Third aspect of being in the image of God as we are immortal beings, immortal beings Isaiah set of God.

God dwells or inhabits eternity. He inhabits eternity to live forever from beginning in you and I the Bible tells us also are immortal. Ecclesiastes chapter 3, God set eternity in their hearts.

This is a quality that humans have the cannot be explained by science or evolution yearned for something like John in the biology class. We have a yearning that this scientific world cannot explain.

Now it's been estimated that if you were to look at what you do in your lifetime.

If you would add up seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months that altogether in your lifetime you will spend 20 straight years sleeping. You will spend another 20 years working you will spend seven years playing five years getting dressed one year on the phone. Some of y'all spent a lot more than that on the phone you will spend eight months opening junk mail that's all part of life. That's the routines we go through, but we were made for eternity.

He said eternity in their hearts. By the way we talk about anthropology comes from the Greek word and preposterous for man and trip loss that Greek word comes from two words combined that literally means one who looks up we are ones who look up no other species is as restless as we are animals are satisfied. Once their needs are met. So I have a couple dogs for me to show you is my excuse to put my pets up so these are my two dogs dine the couches Mac Mac is the old man in the herd. He's been around a while and the one on the rug. This is Maisie they're both little Welsh terriers cute little Bob's she's just about eight months old. We take care of. We petted him we feed him. They play they go on walks and obviously they sleep. I have never seen those creatures worry. I've never seen back over in the corner, put his head in his pockets and coronavirus is never done that. I have never seen them contemplating the meaning of their existence. The meaning of life to them. That is the meaning of life right there sleeping, eating, snoozing, playing get a snack going on walks.

That is to them the meaning of life.

We alone have a sense of restlessness.

There something beyond this, we think God is given us that eternal capacity, that's what prompts us to probe.

That's why your kids asked so many questions why daddy why that will then what happens that there probably want to know more. There there yearning beyond just this St. Augustine put it so beautifully when he said, thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in the so we are rational beings moral beings were immortal beings and 1/4. Certainly not the end of the list but fourth, we are responsible being responsible. In verse 28 it says God bless them. That is the first man and woman and said to them, be fruitful and multiply the earth and some do it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air of every living thing that moves on the earth.

You are different from all the other animals. I want you to rule over this planet subdue is the Hebrew word cup Bosch, which means to tread upon still a word we use in our slang put a cup Bosch on from that Hebrew word to tread upon the word have dominion needs to subjugate or to rule back to Psalm eight were David said, what is man that you are mindful of them in that Psalm David in describing us said you to God, you have made him that is us.

You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands you have put all things under his feet. In other words, we are managers of this creation. We are stewards of creation there is to be a theology of creation care that we work off of. Simply because this is God's world and God put us here to manage it to care for. So we are not only created by God. We are reflections of God.

We are in his image far different than than animals know when something goes awry and you hear a news article about violence or extremism and I hear people say this is so horrible. Look at those people acting like animals. Will your educational system is to hold them for decades.

That's what they are. So when they start acting like what you say they are, why should you be surprised at that human telling them their prairie chickens. When God's intention is that they soar like eagles made in his image. So we are in God's image. We embody God's communicable attributes of reason of the motion of love, etc. but I haven't even touched on this. The image has been marred. The mirror is scratched. That's where sin comes in.

That's where the fall comes in that's also part of the story. We haven't touched on yet and that's the reason that Jesus is needed to restore the image that Islam will get into that next time.

But I want to show you this time is not only God's creation of man and reflection in man, but finally God's interaction with man this is all part of the purpose. Go to Genesis chapter 3 again to skimming a couple verses Genesis chapter 3 in verse six so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes. A tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings very humorous in any way story, but I know what time to get into all of my mind's thinking I'll do that next. Here's what I want to show you. Verse eight and they heard this sound, get this of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. What up with that they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden and the Lord God called to Adam and said where are you this is an amazing description God made some kind of an appearance in the garden can tell you exactly how or what some manifestation of his glory may be a luminescent apparition of some kind. We don't know how God appeared in the garden some visible form that the word is used here walking walking in the cool of the day. A better translation would be walking to and fro in the garden in the breeze of the day. I infer from that. The evening time when things cool off.

So the way it's worded in this verse, it sounds like this was customary, the God sort of showed up at a set time every day to take a walk with his creation, Adam and Eve to have a daily chat with God. The word walking in Hebrew is the word Hall lock, which means to move among to be at ease with to be conversant with. In other words, God created man for a purpose, not just to reflect his glory. His image but to have fellowship with to reciprocate God's love.

Now I'll just touch on this because I want to get deep into the weeds of this we've Artie stated before in the series 2020 seeing truth clearly stated that God by his very nature is independent. He is the only what we call noncontingent being in the universe what it means, basically, he doesn't need anything or anyone is perfectly okay just by himself and before he created human beings he had a loving relational fellowship in the Trinity between father son and Holy Spirit. That's what's up. In verse 26 when they paused in creation and have this inner Trinitarian discussion. Hey let us make man in our image, so the image of God.

God made man and woman so in that fellowship. They had one another.

There is a desire to expand the circle of fellowship expand the relational circle. The circle of love, let us make man in our image, so God's creation of man was so that his reflection would be in man, but the ultimate purpose is that God might interact with man and woman fellowship, intimacy to be conversant with at ease with to interact with. Let me just in there and say say this, ask a question, do you take advantage of that privilege.

Do you take advantage of God's desire to walk with you. God has a desire God is a purpose for you in one of his purposes for you is that you know him that he walk with you that you do life together with him, do you walk with God is not a concern of yours is at a stated goal in your head and your heart.

I want to walk with God. I want to live to please God. I want to know God. It should be why you're here. Sometimes I take want to take my dog and walks with dogs on walks actually, they pull me but that's another story. Sometimes I go on walks alone and when I do it's usually a prayer walk.

I like to walk and pray I get the idea that I'm actually talking to God. Like in a in a in this kind of situation.

Oftentimes I'll be praying out loud so my neighbors think it's a crazy old man. The talks to himself on walks but I'm really trying to just have it.

Prayer walk talk with God. But the question I want to leave with you is do you take advantage of God's desire to walk with you. Albert Einstein once said, scientists make poor philosophers, but every now and then you get a scientist who makes a great philosopher and one of those I think was one of the great scientific minds of all times and that is Sir Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton is widely regarded as one who discovered gravitation Sir Isaac Newton said that he could take his telescope and look millions of miles into space with his telescope, but what you may not know is Sir Isaac Newton was a strong Christian believer and though he was this great scientific mind and study the universe. He said this and I want to close with this quote.

He said, but when I lay it aside when I lay my telescope aside after looking into the heavens.

When I laid aside going to my room, shut the door. Get down on my knees and earnest prayer I see more of heaven and feel closer to the Lord than if I were assisted by all the telescopes on earth such a great great statement of the scientific mind who said but I know why I'm here I'm here to be in relationship with my creator. So, do you take advantage do you walk with him. Do you know the creator. Have you found your purpose in life. You are not a prairie chicken. I know you look around a lot of is you I see prairie chicken but that's the marring of the image that's the scratch on the glass were meant to soar with our Creator were meant to know him and walked with him to interact with him.

It could be that some of you don't even know God yet you come to church. You will visit you know people who do that and you think maybe that's a good thing to expose yourself to bat so you do that you think about the thoughts that are being said but you have this relationship you were talking about with God. You know, if you want, you can begin right now. It's that simple. God made it that simple that he will draw near to you. If you draw near to him. The Bible tells us that so how do I know if it's true, private. You can philosophize all your life about her or you can actually step over the line and received him as Lord and Savior. Give your life to the one who gave you life all calls that the smartest thing you did everything your reasonable service then reps escape latex message from the series 22 Skip to tell you about how you can keep encouraging messages like this 1 Coming Your Way as you help connect others to God's truths true fulfillment and happiness in life comes from one thing only. That is pursuing God himself.

I like to ask you to join us in getting that life changing message to the world desperately needs to hear it when you give a gift, you help keep these Bible teachings coming to you and to many others. Here's how to give a gift you can give online@connectwithskip.com/donate. That's connectwithskip.com/donate or call 800-922-1888, 800-922-1888. Thank you to them tomorrow is Skip sending heightened shares about a victorious hope you have that counters any false incidents. People who have not confessed their sins should feel guilt. Put it this way.

If your sin is fast, then you should feel guilt because it's been forgiven, but if your sin is unconfessed. You should feel guilt because you have an address the real