Fall Of Man Series

INTRODUCTION

Who are we? What are we doing here? What is our purpose?

One of the hardest questions to answer then counselling nowadays is what is my purpose in life? Many people look around at the world and say there has to be more than what I see and what I feel and if life is more than all of this what is it? Still others will ask why was I made this way or why do I feel so much pain? Why am I important and why is life this way?

These are some pretty serious questions that can really mess up people as they try to look at it through the humanistic modern culture that says that we have a right to be happy and live in an undefended way. The reality of it is that one of the biggest reasons why we struggle with our purpose and perspective is that we have walked away from God, our creator, and forgotten the purpose for which we were created.

BODY

Welcome to our 4th week of our foundations of faith series as we go through with the Bible engagement project to explore what we believe and why we believe it. One of the things I love about the Bible engagement project is that our church is all talking about the same thing today. Downstairs joy is with the kids and they're talking about the same topic that we are. In our discipleship group led by Alvin, we're talking about the exact same thing. But before we get into talking about the fall of man I think it's important to ask these questions about purpose because to fully understand the results of the fall of man we first have to understand the purpose of why we were created.

So far in our series we started with the authority and inspiration of the Bible as the inspired word of God. The last two weeks we have talked about God and how he has presented himself in a triune nature and then last week we talked about Jesus and what he has done for us.

But this question about purpose is one that the psalmist raises especially in relationship with God. We talked about last week how Jesus stepped out of heaven into history in order to have a relationship with God but let's look at who God is and then ask who are we?

Psalm 144:1-4

When we look at the majesty of God and all that he has done for us how he is our rescuer he is our fortress he has created us he's given us skills he's our shield he's the place we take refuge and then we look at ourselves and we're nothing compared to that why are we so important to God that he would die for us?

Psalm 8:1-9

God is the creator of the universe and look at what David writes here he looks up at the night sky and he sees the works of his fingers, and he looks at God's works in silencing our enemies and that he is higher than the glory of heaven and then he looks at us he goes who are we we're mortal we're nothing!

James puts it this way: Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. 4:14b

And yet even though we're like the fog that we're here 1 moment gone the next God has placed us in authority over everything on the earth and it goes to show how wonderful he is versus how small we really are so again I come to the question when it comes to humanity who are we?

I think to answer that question we have to go back to the beginning we have to go to genesis and read about the creation of man so if you have your bibles turn with me to

Genesis 1:26-31; 2:4-25; 3:8a

1. Humanity was a special creation by God unlike anything else that he had created up until this point. Unlike any other creature, humanity was made in the image of God and given some of the same authority that God had in order to govern and tend all of creation.

2. Humanity was made to tend and care for the garden,

3. to explore and name-understand the world around them and

4. to have relationship with each other and God. (to walk in the Garden with God and have fellowship and relationship) That

Humans were created perfectly complete in creation although they were not all that they could develop into. When we think of perfection in this think more of the bud of a flower rather than the blossom. And there are things that could make us closer to be like God, but we would never create it to be God simply to reflect who he is in the same way that the moon was never created to be the sun but to reflect the light that it gives.