What Do I Believe About Humanity? Series

INTRODUCTION

• SLIDE #1

• We have examined a variety of issues in our What Do I Believe Series.

• One of the issues we covered was the fact that God created the heavens and the earth, along with everything in the universe, including mankind.

• Today we are going to focus in on humanity.

• God created everything but the pinnacle of creation was the making of human beings, the only creatures crafted in the image of God.

• The Bible is all about God’s love for humanity, the bible shows us what God has done for humanity.

• We believe that all people are loved by God and need Jesus as their Savior.

• God loves the world and every single person in it.

• Sometimes it when we look at what people do to each other, how God could possibly love us? When we see how some reject God, we have to wonder, how can God still love humanity.

• Every single person who has ever lived, died, or will live in the future is loved by God… so much that he gave his one and only Son – not to condemn people, but to save them from the consequences of their humanity.

• Today we will examine humanity and we will begin with…

• SLIDE #2

SERMON

I. God’s original intent for humanity.

• This is an important thing to understand, and understanding this concept will help one to understand some of the issues one finds in the Old Testament concerning the length of the life spans people experienced.

• When God created man, He created him to be eternal, to be in constant fellowship with God. The reason I can say this is because the bible tells us that death came because of Adam’s sin, in other words there was NO death before Adam’s sin.

• SLIDE #3

• Romans 5:12 (HCSB) Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned.

• Verse 14 tells us that one man was Adam. When God created him, he and Eve were perfect genetically, there was no such thing as disease, so they were made to live forever.

• SLIDE #4

• Genesis 2:17 (HCSB) but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”

• When God told Adam he would die if he ate of the tree, the word DIE mean to begin the process of decay, it did not mean he would drop dead on the spot.

• When God created man, look at what the Bible says concerning the creation.

• SLIDE #5

• Genesis 1:26–27 (HCSB) Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female.

• We are created in His image!

• In Genesis 1, we see that God provided Adam and Eve everything they needed to live life.

• God had such a close relationship with them, that He walk on the earth with them! Genesis 3:8.

• Humanity had it all in the beginning, but how did humanity handle the gift they were given?

• SLIDE #6

II. Humanity’s response to God’s original intent.

• WOW, think about it, they had it all, they were taken care of, they were in fellowship with God, when they turned on the news, there was really no bad news, nothing died, life was good!

• Well, for a while. God gave Adam and Eve the tree to stay away from as a test of their love.

• We call it freewill, the freedom to choose one’s path in life, the freedom to live life as one desires.

• So what would happen, would humanity choose God, or self?

• SLIDE #7

• Genesis 3:1–6 (HCSB) — 1 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ” 4 “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.