"What is Man?" (Genesis 2:7)

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This is the Lord's Day Worship service at Sovereign Grace Family Church. June 14, 2020 www.SGFCjax.org

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I'm so glad you're in my life, I'm so glad you came to save us.
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You came from heaven to earth to show the way, from the earth to the cross, I dare to say, from the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky, Lord I lift your name on high.
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You came from heaven to earth to show the way, from the earth to the cross, to the grave, from the grave to the sky, Lord I lift your name on high.
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Lord I lift your name on high.
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Lord I lift your name on high.
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Well good morning.
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It's good to see everyone this morning.
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If you'd like to have a seat, our reader will come forward and we're going to read this morning from Ephesians chapter 4.
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If you want to open your Bibles and be ready when Brother Andy reads.
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So as we read God's word this morning, Ephesians chapter 4, you remember what we said as we read through, particularly the epistles in the New Testament, that it's characteristic of the apostle in his opening of these letters to the churches to lay out great doctrinal truths.
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And then as he progresses through these letters, he begins to put in the practical implications that come out of those doctrines.
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So as we read Ephesians 4, I believe that's where we will see this begin to take place, that Paul, having laid out great doctrinal truths in the opening of his letter, now begins to exhort the saints to respond in a certain way.
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So let us hear what God says to us this morning.
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Ephesians chapter 4, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
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There is one body, one spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all.
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But until every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ, wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men.
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Now he that ascended, what is it that, but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth.
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He that descended is the same who has ascended up far above the heavens that he might fill all things.
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And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
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Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
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That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind and doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
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But speaking the truth in love may grow up in him to all things, which is the head, even Christ.
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For whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplier, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, making increase of the body unto the edification of itself in love.
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Therefore I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walked in the vanity of their minds, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over to licentiousness to work all uncleanness with greediness.
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But you have not so learned Christ.
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If so be that you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus that you put off concerning the form of conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lust and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, wherefore putting away lying, speaking every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
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Be angry and sin not.
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Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
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Neither give place to the devil.
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Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good that he may have to give to him that need it.
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Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
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And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed until the day of redemption.
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Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, and clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.
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May God bless His Word.
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Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.
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That is our call to change because prior to coming to Christ, we are but sinners.
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But coming to Christ, the Spirit comes to live within us and we still fight that battle with sin, but yet at the same time we are called not to grieve the Spirit, but to through our bodies glorify the Lord.
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So grieve not, but glorify.
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Let's stand and we're going to glorify God in singing the song, The Name of the Lord.
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Now, this song requests clapping, so I want to encourage you.
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I know we don't do a lot of that here, but I would encourage you if you feel comfortable to clap with us as we sing The Name of the Lord.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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Most high.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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Most high.
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A strong tower.
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Righteous run into it.
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They are saved.
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The name of the Lord.
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A strong tower.
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Righteous run into it.
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They are saved.
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Glory to the name.
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Glory to the name of the Lord.
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Glory to the name of the Lord.
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Glory to the name of the Lord.
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Most high.
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Glory to the name of the Lord.
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Glory to the name of the Lord.
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Glory to the name of the Lord.
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Most high.
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The name of the Lord.
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A strong tower.
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Righteous run into it.
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They are saved.
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The name of the Lord.
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A strong tower.
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Righteous run into it.
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They are saved.
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This is holy.
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Holy is the name of the Lord.
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Holy is the name of the Lord.
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Holy is the name of the Lord.
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Most high.
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Holy is the name of the Lord.
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Holy is the name of the Lord.
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Holy is the name of the Lord.
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Most high.
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Sing out together.
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The name of the Lord is.
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A strong tower.
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Righteous run into it.
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They are saved.
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The name of the Lord.
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A strong tower.
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Righteous run into it.
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They are saved.
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Amen.
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Well, we're going to now move to the time of offering.
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And as you know, we are continuing as we have been and enjoying the opportunity to bring our gifts to the Lord.
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We have two plates in the front.
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We have a plate by the back door.
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And we have a plate over by this back door.
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And so during this next song, we're going to obey the Lord as he calls us to be generous.
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The Bible says each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion.
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For the Lord loves a cheerful giver.
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Now, I'm going to ask, well, Brother Gary, you're here again.
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So I'm going to ask you to pray in just a second.
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But after he prays, we're going to sing a song while we're taking the offering.
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And I want to give a little insight into this song.
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The title of the song is Lord, I Deserve Thy Deepest Wrath.
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That is a heavy thought.
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And it's a heavy thought to sing.
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But this song was written by one of the founders of the SBC, the Southern Baptist Convention, whose name was Basil Manley Jr.
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And what we've done is we've updated the structure of the song to give it a more contemporary feel.
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But these are the words that was part of that original hymn.
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So after Brother Gary prays for the offering, we'll begin to sing.
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And you can come and give your offerings as the Lord leads.
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Lord, I deserve thy deepest wrath.
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Ungrateful, faithless I have been.
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No terrors have my soul deterred.
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Nor goodness wooed me from my sin.
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My heart is vile, my mind depraved.
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My flesh rebels against thy will.
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I am polluted in thy sight.
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Yet, Lord, have mercy on me still.
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Without defense to thee I look.
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To thee the only Savior fly.
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Without a hope, without a friend.
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In deep distress to thee I cry.
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Speak peace to me.
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My sins forgive.
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Dwell thou within my heart, O God.
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The guilt and power of sin removed.
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And fit me for thy blessed abode.
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Lord, what I deserve you have withheld.
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You placed it on your Son who died.
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He took my death.
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He took my place.
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And by his cross I'm justified.
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I deserve thy deepest wrath.
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Ungrateful, faithless I have been.
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No terrors have my soul deterred.
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Nor goodness wooed me from my sin.
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Lord, what I deserve you have withheld.
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You placed it on your Son who died.
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He took my death.
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He took my place.
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And by his cross I'm justified.
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He took my death.
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He took my place.
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And by his cross I'm justified.
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Amen.
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At this time I want to invite Brother Mike to come and lead our time of prayer and you may all be seated.
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As you can see in your bulletin, we still have our continued people we need to pray for.
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Sharon, continue to pray for Ann, Walter, Rosanna.
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And we need to pray for Andy's family.
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His mother is in hospice.
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He said she doesn't think she'll make it through the day.
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So we need to pray for Andy and Candy and the rest of the family.
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So let's take a moment of silence and then we'll go to the Lord together in prayer.
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Father, your word says be still and know that you are God.
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And I can confess in my own heart, Father, that is difficult.
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Being still and being quiet is contrary to my nature.
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So God, I would ask that right now you would just give us peace of mind, help us to focus upon you and help us to know that you are the God of all creation.
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As we just sang, that sent your Son to take the wrath that we deserve and he died in our place.
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And through his death, burial and resurrection, Father, we have been justified freely by your grace.
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Nothing that we could have obtained by money or action or works.
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Father, for you say it's not of him who works but him who believes that is counted righteous.
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And Father, we say thank you that we are justified by faith and faith alone in your blessed Son.
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Father God, I would ask that you would be with us and your people, this country, in this very difficult time, Father, which seems to be chaotic, which seems to be spinning out of control.
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But Father God, we know that you are the sovereign God and that you have enthroned your Son as the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
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And Father, one day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.
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Father, if they do it this day, Father, they do it to their eternal bliss and forever in a place of heaven.
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But Father, if they do it on that final day, it'll be to their condemnation.
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And God, I pray, I pray today that Father, those that are in this room that do not know you, that today would be that day of salvation.
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That today would be the day that you would awaken them from their deadness.
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Father, your Word says that we too once were alienated from you.
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We too were once the children of wrath, but you have translated us from eternal darkness into your marvelous light.
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And Father, I pray today that those in here that do not know you, young or old, that today would be the day of salvation.
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And as Keith preaches, that God, you would use the words that come off of his mouth, the exegesis of the Scripture to quicken their heart.
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For faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God.
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And I pray for Andy and Candy and their family.
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I pray for comforting his mother in this difficult time as she's in her last hours.
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I pray that you would strengthen them.
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I pray that you would give them peace of mind and that this time of grieving would be quick and that, God, you would send forth an extra measure of grace and an extra measure of your mercy upon the family.
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Father God, once again, we love you.
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We thank you so much for what you have done in our place.
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And we do know that, Father, we are so undeserving of everything that we have.
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We walk on your dirt.
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We drink your water.
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We breathe your air.
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And, Father, we are deserving of so much wrath as we have sinned.
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God, but you have, through your grace and mercy, forgiven us.
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Father, help us to live as those who have been redeemed.
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Prepare us now for the time of preaching.
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In Christ's name, amen.
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I want to invite you to open your Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 2.
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And we're going to actually begin this morning with the reading of Scripture.
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So, if you would stand with me.
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We're going to read just verse 7 because this is the subject of today's message.
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And the title is, What is Man? What is Man? Verse 7 says, Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
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And the man became a living creature, or better yet, a living soul.
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Father in Heaven, thank you for your Word.
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May you keep me from error as I preach.
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In Christ's name, amen.
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You may be seated.
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One of my favorite television shows over the years has been a program called How It's Made.
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How It's Made is a television show that takes you through the production of various types and sorts of items.
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And in every episode, it shows the production from start to finish.
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From raw material to the finished product.
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Whether it be how they create a violin out of taking a block of wood and carving it into the shape of the instrument and finishing it with all kinds of lacquer and other things, or even how they produce creamed corn.
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And each episode is filled with great information about how we go from raw material to, again, a finished product.
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The narrator takes the viewer on a step-by-step journey through the production process.
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Well, our passage today is similar in this respect that it tells us about the creation of something, but the subject matter is much more interesting than anything that we could find on an episode of How It's Made.
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Because the thing that we're going to look at today that is being created is man himself.
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The creator is God.
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And Moses is our narrator.
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He is the one taking us through the process from raw material to the finished product.
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And it's one of the most familiar narratives in all of the Bible.
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In the midst of God creating the world, in the midst of speaking the universe into existence, God chooses to make His highest creation mankind.
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That was a choice.
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God could have chosen to make another creature the image-bearer, but He didn't.
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He chose man to be the image-bearer.
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He created man specifically to be the image-bearer.
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The text in Genesis 2-7 says He formed man from the dust.
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The word formed in Hebrew, the concept of the word, is the concept of being sculpted.
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If you think of the word formed, if you think of the word sculpted, and the word in Hebrew actually means to squeeze something into shape.
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So if you think of a sculptor who sits down with a block of clay and he begins to pull off a piece of the clay and he begins to squeeze that clay into the shape of a cup or into the shape of a vase or into the shape of some kind of a pot, that's the picture that's being displayed here.
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It's the idea of sculpting something.
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The clay is formless until the potter begins to squeeze it into the design that he has in his mind.
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And the Bible uses the analogy of the potter and the clay throughout to describe the relationship between God and man.
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Consider Isaiah 64, verse 8.
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It says, But now, O Lord, You are our Father.
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We are the clay and You are our potter.
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We are all the work of Your hand.
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Think about when the Bible talks about we were knitted together in our mother's womb.
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That God Himself is the one who is forming us.
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And then we get to the New Testament and when the Apostle Paul is discussing the subject of God's sovereignty in doing what He wills with us, His creatures.
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What's the language that is used? Has the potter no right over the clay? And the picture there again is the picture of He who made, He who created, He who formed, He who sculpted.
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And God forms the first man as a wise master sculptor.
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Now, somebody might point out the fact that in chapter 2, verse 19, it also uses the word formed, which is the same word of the animals.
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But we must take into consideration something.
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That in chapter 2, verse 7, there is a uniqueness to the forming of man as opposed to all of the rest of creation.
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And we see this uniqueness in the intimacy with which God forms man.
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And we see this in chapter 1 when it talks about man being the image bearer of God.
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That separates Him from all the other formed animals.
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But also in chapter 2, verse 7 that we're going to look at today, we'll see the intimacy in Him breathing into man a soul.
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And so there is a uniqueness, even though the language is similar to what is used of the creation of the animals, it's unique from how He created the animals.
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For man is the high point.
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Man is the crown.
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Man is the purpose.
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Man is the point mark.
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Man is what God has gotten all this prepared for.
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God has prepared the world and prepared the creatures and prepared everything for this one man that He might serve as God's image bearer in the world.
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Think about what man was created for.
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He was created to bear the image of God in the world.
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To be God's likeness.
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To rule, to reign, and to demonstrate the glory and the grace of Almighty God.
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Of course, we know later in the story that man damages this great created purpose for which he was given.
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But, we mustn't miss that that was the purpose for which he was made.
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To glorify God as His image bearer.
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And most of us are familiar with this narrative.
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Most of us are familiar with God made man from the dust.
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In fact, if you spent any time in Sunday school as a kid, there were a few things that you probably learned very well.
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You learned about David and Goliath.
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You learned about Noah and the ark.
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And you learned about Adam and Eve in the garden.
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And God made Adam from the dirt.
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And God made Eve from Adam's side.
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But this passage is more than just a story.
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This passage is more than just an ancient informational pamphlet about how we began.
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This is more than an ancient episode of how it's made.
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Because in this one passage, and again, we're only looking at verse 7 today.
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In this one passage, what we see is that it gives us insight into who and what we are.
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What is man? What is man? That is a question that philosophers have grappled with.
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That is a question that great minds have wrestled with.
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That's a question that goes into the classrooms and the great thinkers duke it out and debate.
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What is man? Well, we need look no further than verse 7 of Genesis chapter 2.
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Because the fundamental question of what we are is answered in this verse.
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And I want to give you three things that we're going to look at today that this verse teaches us.
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Three truths about the constitution of man that is answered, that answers the fundamental question what is man that is found just in Genesis 2 and verse 7.
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The three things are this, and then we'll go back and look at each one.
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1.
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He is creature.
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2.
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He is elemental.
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And 3.
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He is spiritual.
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I'll say that again.
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The three things that this passage teaches us is 1.
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Man is creature.
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2.
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Man is elemental.
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And I'll explain what that means when we get there.
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And then 3.
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Man is spiritual.
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So let us look first at number 1.
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Man is creature.
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Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 2 particularly chapter 2 verse 7 establishes a relationship between man and God.
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And the relationship is very simple but it is one that is often overlooked and often missed and that is this.
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God is creator.
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Man is creature.
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God is creator.
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Man is creature.
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Now often we think of creature as something other than a human being.
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I think about all the creatures in my backyard.
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I love the creatures in my backyard for the most part.
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Don't like snakes.
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And lizards are snakes with legs so I don't like them either.
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But I've become quite fond of squirrels because we set up a bird feeder and apparently it was really designed to be a squirrel feeder.
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And so we've become quite fond of Fast Rick which is our squirrel that's what we named him and his buddies.
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So we have Fast Rick and the boys and they come and they eat all our bird feed.
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But those are creatures and we think of bugs.
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You know the kids love bugs and JJ he'll grab lizards which I don't understand.
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But those we think of that as creatures.
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Yes I'm talking about you today.
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Sometimes creature that word is equated with a concept of a monster.
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Think about like the creature from the Black Lagoon.
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Sometimes it's related to some kind of a mythical thing like creatures from outer space.
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But the word creature is derived from the word create.
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In fact that's the very root of the word creature is the word create.
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Therefore to divine something as a creature is distinguishing it as not the creator.
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So in that sense man is creature.
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Man is created by God.
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Recognizing this is essential to understanding our place in the cosmos.
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Men are good at fancy fancying ourselves as more important than we really are.
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We often are filled with prideful thoughts of power and independence.
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This can lead us to all kinds of delusions of grandeur even considering ourselves divine.
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You remember Pablo Picasso? Pablo Picasso was a famous artist.
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Abstract artist which means I don't like it.
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But that's really neither here nor there.
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But Picasso was interesting in how he would demonstrate his artistic ability.
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One of his most famous quotes he said this God is an artist like me.
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I am God.
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I am God.
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I am God.
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That's a very famous quote.
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You can look it up.
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I'm not making it up.
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He said God is an artist like me and I am God.
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I am God.
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I am God.
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And I'm just over here going no you're not.
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No you're not.
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No you're not.
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But you see that's the attitude of mankind is that because we have this image of God within us which gives us amazing abilities.
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Man is amazing.
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You realize we send people into space.
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We have great minds.
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The ability to create explosions that rather than destroying they have the power to lift us up and break the field of gravity and push us out into the outer limits of our atmosphere and above the atmosphere and even to the moon.
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It's an amazing ability.
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And it is the demonstration of the image of God in man.
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But never let us for a moment think that those amazing abilities that man has puts man on par with God.
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It does not.
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The Christian should understand the great distinction and the distinction is this.
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Man is not God.
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And you think why would he even say that? That's so obvious.
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No, not to most men.
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What was it that tempted Eve? You will be like God.
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What is the temptation of man today? You will be as God.
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You can be your own God.
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What's the thing out in Seattle right now? The autonomous zone.
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Do you know what the word autonomous means? It means to be a law unto yourself or self-governing.
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It means to be independent and without restriction.
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That is the goal of natural man.
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It's to break free from the bond of the authority of God and to be self-governing.
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To be his own God.
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Man is God's image bearer.
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But he is not God himself.
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There is a distinction to be made between creature and creator.
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And it's found in this verse.
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And that distinction is as wide as the universe is.
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The distinction between you and God.
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Paul emphasizes this distinction in Romans 9.
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He explains in Romans 9 the great doctrine of election and he anticipates those who would disagree with him.
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And you know what he anticipates? He anticipates when he's talking about God's sovereignty over man and the ability to do with man what he chooses.
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He anticipates somebody arguing with him.
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And this is his response.
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Romans 9, 19.
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You will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? But who are you, O man, who answers back to God? Can the thing formed say to him who formed it, why have you made me this way? And then he goes on to say, has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use, one for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make his power known, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy which he prepared beforehand for glory? The question and the answer is implicit in the statement.
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He's saying, who are you, O man, to question your Creator? You are but dust.
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How dare we think that we can look at He who is Almighty and we who are creatures and have at any time an ability to call into question who He is or what He has done? Who are you, O man? In fact, the emphasis in the Greek of that statement is actually on the word man because that's the first word in the Greek.
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And it says, O man, who are you to answer back to God? That emphasizes the idea of creatureliness.
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Take this into your mind and understand that this is the truth.
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Idolatry happens when we confuse the category of creator and created.
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Idolatry happens when we confuse the category of creator and creature.
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Think about it.
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What is idolatry? Worshiping something other than God.
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And the only thing that exists other than God are the created things.
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So therefore, if you are idolatry, if you're committing idolatry, you are by nature worshiping a creature.
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Maybe it's yourself.
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Maybe you're your own God.
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And maybe you're the idol that you need to repent of worshiping.
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Maybe it's another human being.
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Maybe it's a golden calf.
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But the very idea, the very idea of idolatry is replacing the creator with a creature.
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That's not my definition.
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That's Paul's definition.
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In Romans chapter 1, he says this, verse 21.
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He says, For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.
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Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal men and birds and animals and creeping things.
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Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged, listen to this, they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and they worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.
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Amen.
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What's the definition of idolatry? Worshiping the creature.
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Whether it's a created idol that you take your earrings out and you make a golden calf as they did in the Exodus or whether it's that God that you've created in your mind that you're worshiping.
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You know what John Calvin said? He said, The human mind is a perpetual factory of idols.
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Always looking to create a God to worship that's different than the God who is.
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You ever heard somebody say, Well, my God wouldn't do that? I always say, You're right because your God doesn't exist.
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Well, my God wouldn't do it that way.
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Well, if it's different than the Bible, it's because you've created an idol.
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So a right understanding of Genesis 2, verse 7 highlights the relationship of God and man as creator and creature.
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So first thing, what is man? Man is creature.
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Man is created.
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Man is not God.
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Man is created by God.
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Therefore, the relationship is formed.
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He is God and I am not.
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So that's number one.
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He is creature.
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Number two, he is elemental.
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Now, I could have just said he is material because ultimately I'm trying to say essentially the same thing but I wanted to point the fact of the elements because if you read chapter 2, verse 7, what you notice is that man has created a material being but he's created out of elements that already exist.
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God takes elements of dust to make the parts of man that are physical.
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Therefore, I call him elemental because he's made of the same elements that are around.
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If you think about the fact that many scientists, especially those who argue for evolution, try to argue the fact that well, man's material parts are made of the same stuff as the other material objects in the universe and as Christians, we should say, yeah, no problem.
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What's the problem? They'll say, well, that's proof that man is no different than stardust.
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That's all he is, is stardust.
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I say, no, that's not all he is but that is part of what he is.
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We're made of dust, not necessarily stardust but earth dust.
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This is what it says.
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It says we're made of the same stuff, elementally.
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In fact, did you know that the elements that make up the body reside all around us? The same stuff in you is all around us in the universe.
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The major components of the human body are oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, sodium, chloride, and magnesium.
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That's the major components but you also have trace components of other things.
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Did you know you have aluminum inside of you? Not enough to make any siding but you've got some aluminum.
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I found out the other day we have formaldehyde.
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Your body produces formaldehyde.
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It's one of the components it makes.
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It's in your blood.
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It's a very trace amount.
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It's not enough to hurt you but it's part of the chemical composition that happens in your blood.
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Isn't that an amazing reality that you have all of these chemicals and these chemicals are found all around us? Moses tells us that that's the case.
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He says God formed man out of the same stuff that everything else is made of.
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Therefore man has an elemental nature.
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He has a material nature similar to all other material things.
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But the interesting thing about what Moses says is he focuses on the word dust.
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And I find that interesting.
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In the Hebrew it's ashar.
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It means dry or loose earth, debris or rubbish or aphar.
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Not ashar, it's aphar.
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But here's the thing that I like and I really believe this is the point.
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He doesn't say that we're made out of anything important.
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Our elemental part is made out of that which most of us would say is unimportant, dust.
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He doesn't say we're made out of gold or he doesn't say that we're made out of some other precious stone.
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But that our elemental part is made out of the basic things.
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It's made out of the simple things.
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Man is not made from gold or precious stones.
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And those things did exist.
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If you look at verse 12 we see those things existed in the garden.
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So it's not as if precious metals and precious stones weren't a part of creation at that point.
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No, but God didn't choose to make us out of that.
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He chose to make us out of the simple thing, the dust.
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And Dr.
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James Montgomery Boyce in his commentary on this says that the reason he believes that this is so is because it demonstrates it's using a pattern in scripture.
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Dust always points to something in scripture.
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And you know what dust always points to? Lowness and humility.
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Lowness, and I'll give you a few examples.
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When Abraham was pleading with God over Sodom, this is in Genesis 18, what did Abraham say to God? He says, Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes.
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See, what was Abraham trying to do? He was demonstrating, I know who I am in your sight.
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I'm dust.
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Or when Hannah was praising God for the request of a son in 1 Samuel 2, 8, what does she say? God raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy out of the ash heap.
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See, it's a picture of lowliness.
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It's a picture of humility.
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And one of the occasions where King Basha of Israel was told that he was lifted, according to 1 Kings 16, 2, he was lifted up from the dust and made leader of the people of Israel.
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So what's the focus? Well, I think the focus highlights the first point.
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We are creature.
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We are creature.
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And it focuses us again on the creatureliness of man, the humility of man.
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There's nothing about our makeup that makes us special.
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And this is actually in the conclusion of my sermon, but I'll go ahead and say it now.
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It's not important what you're made of.
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What's important is who you're made by and what you're made for.
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You're not important because of what you're made of.
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You're important because of who you're made by and what you're made for.
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Matthew Henry said this, Man was not made of gold dust, powder of pearl, or diamond dust, but common dust, dust of the ground.
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God takes the simple thing and He creates His best work.
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God takes the dust of the ground and He makes His masterpiece.
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What is that? Does that highlight the glory of the dust? No.
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It highlights the glory of the Creator.
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The power of He who can take the very simplest element and make the most, well, the greatest of His creation.
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So man is creature.
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That is one.
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Man is material or elemental.
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That is two.
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But now I want to look at the third thing because the third thing is not only is man elemental, but man is also spiritual.
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But before I get there, I want to make a point.
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There are people who believe that man is only material.
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Did you know that? That there are those who believe that man is only the physical.
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They will say something like this.
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They'll say the soul doesn't really exist.
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The soul is simply a complex working of the mind which is causing you to have and experience something that they would call consciousness.
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And you don't really possess a spiritual nature, but you are simply experiencing consciousness because of evolution which has created your mind in such a way that you are now self-aware and that you understand yourself and people around you and you're the highest of an evolutionary change or an evolutionary chain of growth.
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But really all you are is nothing more than the material.
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I want to read a couple of comments to you from a few articles here.
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The first one is from an article entitled Neuroscience and Psychology Have Rendered It Basically Unnecessary to Have a Soul.
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That's a long title for an article, but that was the name of the article.
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I'll say it again.
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Neuroscience and Psychology Have Rendered It Basically Unnecessary to Have a Soul.
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This is by George Praximas.
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It was in September 2016.
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This is what he says.
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As a neuroscientist and psychologist, I have no use for the soul.
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On the contrary, all functions attributable to this kind of soul can be explained by the workings of the brain.
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Psychology is the study of behavior to carry out their work of modifying behavior such as in treating addiction, phobia, anxiety, and depression.
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Psychologists do not need to assume people have souls.
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For the psychologist, it is not so much that souls do not exist, it is that there is no need for them.
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End quote.
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This is a neuroscientist.
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He's saying you don't have a soul.
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It's all in your head.
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You ever heard that? So you're really nothing more than elemental.
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You're really nothing more than those chemicals that I mentioned before, nitrogen and sulfur and all.
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That's all you are.
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You're a very complex arrangement of it.
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You should be very impressed by how far you've gotten because that's all you are.
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But still, that's all you are.
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Francis Crick, who was the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, he said this.
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And listen to this.
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Listen to the implications of this.
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You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.
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That's all you are.
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All your memories, all your love, all your hate, all your passions are really nothing more than a complex arrangement of nerve cells and associated molecules.
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One article even came out and just said it.
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You don't have a soul.
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That was the title of the article.
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And it had a subtitle.
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It said, The Real Science That Debunks Superstitious Charlatans.
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That's the title of the article.
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It says this.
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It says, Reflecting on what he calls the scientific image of persons, notice we're putting persons in science image, not God's image, but that's another argument.
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It says, Reflecting on what he calls the scientific image of persons, the philosopher Owen Flanagan stressed that we need to demythologize persons by rooting out certain unfounded ideas from the perennial philosophy.
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Letting go of the belief in souls is a minimum requirement.
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In fact, the desouling, or rather not the, but in fact desouling is the primary operation of the scientific image.
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Hear that again, that sentence.
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The goal of creating man in the scientific image is the desouling of man.
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You are nothing immaterial.
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You are nothing that is not elemental.
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You are only the physical.
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That's all you are.
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As Lawrence Krauss, one of the most famous atheists in the world has said, you are all just stardust.
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That's all you are.
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In fact, he says this.
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He says, Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded and the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand.
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It's very poetic.
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You are all stardust.
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You ever wonder why people act the way they act today? You ever wonder why there's a, seemingly recently on the world stage, a massive push to violate the integrity of the individual for the benefit of the collective? By the way, that's the heart of socialism and communism is the violation of the individual for the purpose of exalting the collective.
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The good of the many outweighs the good of the few.
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That only works if you're not part of the few.
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And that's not justice, by the way.
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That's not how justice works.
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But the reason why we are seeing some of the things that we see today is because of the massive push away from the integrity and importance of the individual.
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Why can we abort 3,000 babies a day? Because as a collective, we see they are unnecessary.
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They're not life, and therefore they can be destroyed.
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The great problem with a lot of political thinking today is the de-souling of the individual.
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We have ceased to see man as being created in the image of God and therefore individually worth and individually valuable.
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And instead, we place the world and nature and other things over man and say, no, we must put these things first.
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And animals even are elevated to the point of being at the same level of man, which the Bible would never allow for those types of things.
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See, this is the danger.
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This is what we see all around us.
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We see, when you tell someone, when you tell a generation or multiple generations that they are nothing but material beings, that there is nothing functionally more valuable in you than there is in the creatures in my backyard, that there's nothing more intricately valuable about you than there is about the lizards that my son catches in his hands, then you can see how the world begins to decay.
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Morality goes the way of the dinosaur because who cares about morality? You're just stardust.
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Who cares who marries who? We're all stardust.
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Who cares who destroys children in the womb when they're all just stardust? Who cares how you behave and whose livelihood you destroy by burning down buildings and killing police officers because we're all stardust? You see, that's the problem.
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When man is relegated to only the elemental, only the material, only the physical, he is no longer an image-bearer of God.
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He's the product of some whore called Mother Nature.
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So my third point is the most important.
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Man is spiritual.
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He possesses a soul.
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The text tells us God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.
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We are alive because we are living souls.
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When does the body die? When the soul departs.
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Both are necessary for life in the body.
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2 Corinthians 5.8, the Apostle Paul, he said he would be rather away from the body and home with the Lord.
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Well, how can he be away from the body if the body is all we are? It doesn't make sense.
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You remember the little girl who died, Jairus' daughter? And Jairus came to Jesus and begged Jesus to come and Jesus came.
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One of my favorite Bible stories.
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I talked about it on my podcast last week.
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And the story chokes me up every time.
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Because here's a man, he comes to Jesus and he begs Jesus to help his daughter and on the way there, this woman grabs Jesus by the garment and Jesus has to stop and have an interaction with him.
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And you can imagine Jairus going, Hey, come on.
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I don't care about her.
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Get to my daughter, right? You were on the way and somebody stopped you.
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And then in the midst of that, somebody comes up and says, Don't trouble the teacher anymore.
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She has died.
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And Jesus goes into the room.
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They're laughing at him.
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How do you laugh in the face of the death of a child? But it said they were laughing at Jesus.
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Jesus says to her, which is Aramaic.
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It means little girl arise.
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And this is what the text says.
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It says, and her spirit returned to her.
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Death is when the soul and the body are divided and life is when the spirit returns.
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You are not just stardust.
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You are not just those 20 or so elements that make up who you are, your body and soul.
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That doesn't mean your body isn't important.
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Your body is important.
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The Bible says the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
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The Bible says the body is important and it will be redeemed.
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Because some people go so far to the other side that they say we're only soul and the body doesn't matter and they become dualistic and the body is unimportant.
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No, the body was created and sculpted by God and the spirit resides within it and they are both valuable.
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And the body will be redeemed and we will be given a new body.
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What the Bible calls a spiritual body.
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Which sounds weird because it's almost as if it's two competing ideas.
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But it's not.
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It will be that one glorious body that we receive that Jesus Christ already has.
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The Bible says when we see him as he is we will be like he is.
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Some people do ask the question and I don't want to spend a lot of time on this but some people do ask the question well is there a third part? Does the Bible sometimes talk about the body, the soul, and the spirit? And is the spirit distinguishable from the soul? To not drag us off into a wild conversation about dichotomy versus trichotomy let me just say this.
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I do believe the Bible makes a distinction between the soul and the spirit sometimes but more often it equates the two as the immaterial part of man.
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And how we see the distinction between soul and spirit is not as important as that we do see a distinction between body and soul.
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The material and the immaterial.
01:00:01
That's the most important distinction.
01:00:03
We need to understand we are both.
01:00:05
We are not only one but we are both.
01:00:09
We are both material and immaterial.
01:00:12
We are both physical and spiritual.
01:00:16
See the Jehovah Witnesses will tell you different.
01:00:19
The Jehovah Witnesses will come to your door and they'll say no.
01:00:22
Body, soul, spirit it's all the same thing and that's why they believe when you die everything goes into the ground.
01:00:26
They don't believe the spirit leaves the body.
01:00:28
They believe everything dies and goes into the ground.
01:00:31
It's called psychopenicia or soul sleep.
01:00:35
It's the same thing that is believed by the Advent Christian Church, the Seventh Day Adventists and many other groups that do not believe that the body and soul are distinguishable.
01:00:48
But the testimony of the historic Christian faith is this.
01:00:51
Man is both material and immaterial and when we die the immaterial part of us continues to live.
01:01:04
When Jesus was on the cross He hung between two men.
01:01:13
At the beginning of the day the Bible says both of those men reviled Him.
01:01:19
And it makes sense because both of them were evil men.
01:01:27
But as they hung on the cross throughout that day as Jesus hung there between heaven and earth taking the punishment for our sins as Jesus hung there one of those men had a change of heart.
01:01:44
God opened His eyes to see the beauty of the one who was hanging next to Him.
01:01:50
And rather than hating the man on the cross He began to love the man on the cross.
01:01:58
And when His counterpart the man on the other side of the cross yelled at Jesus and said get yourself if you're really the Son of God get yourself off this cross and take us down with you.
01:02:11
The man whose heart had changed the man whose eyes God had opened the man who had experienced regeneration on that cross looked at Jesus and he said Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.
01:02:32
And Jesus said today thou shalt be with me in paradise.
01:02:41
Not a millennium from now.
01:02:44
Not two millennium from now.
01:02:47
But today thou shalt be with me in paradise.
01:02:55
That man's body went into the ground.
01:02:57
But that man's soul was hidden in Christ with God.
01:03:05
Do not let the world convince you that you are but material only.
01:03:13
For you are having been created by God by body and soul.
01:03:21
This one verse reminds us that we are creatures we are material and we are spiritual.
01:03:30
And as I said earlier we are special not because of what we're made of and certainly not because of what we do but because who we're made by and what we were made for.
01:03:43
We were created by God and we were created with a purpose.
01:03:47
Our purpose is to glorify God.
01:03:51
That is the chief end of man.
01:03:55
To glorify God.
01:03:57
That's why he formed Adam from the dust.
01:04:01
That's why he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
01:04:04
That is why he created man to glorify himself.
01:04:09
I remember recently just had a conversation with a guy and I was saying do you know what God's main goal is? That he's going to glorify himself.
01:04:18
And I said and you will glorify God in one of two ways.
01:04:25
As an image bearer of God you bear a responsibility to the God who created you and you have broken His law.
01:04:31
You have found yourself condemned before Him and you will glorify Him in one of two ways.
01:04:36
You will either glorify Him as an object of His mercy whereby He gives you mercy and grace through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will go into glory glorifying Him forever as an object of His mercy or you will glorify Him as an object of His justice receiving in yourself the due penalty that you are owed.
01:04:58
But know this what you were created for you will not miss out on because you were created to glorify God.
01:05:07
So I don't want to glorify God in His justice I want to glorify God in His mercy.
01:05:11
Well repent of your sins and trust in Christ.
01:05:17
People say well I don't know if I'm one of the elect.
01:05:19
Here's how you know believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved.
01:05:23
The Bible doesn't tell us to wonder if we're elect.
01:05:27
It tells us to believe.
01:05:29
It doesn't command us to search for ourselves on our bodies.
01:05:35
Maybe we might have a tattoo of an E somewhere.
01:05:38
There's no tattoo of E on the backs of the elect.
01:05:41
How do we define the elect of God? Those who have repented of their sins and trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ and they and they alone will glorify God in His grace.
01:05:53
That's my heart for all of you and my heart for everyone listening to this message that you would believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as an object of God's amazing grace.
01:06:08
Let us pray.
01:06:09
Father in heaven I thank you for the opportunity to be reminded of what we are.
01:06:17
We are creatures and you are creator.
01:06:22
We are dust and you are the one who can take even dust and make it into something amazing.
01:06:33
We are spiritual but our spirits Lord we have been affected by the flesh.
01:06:42
We've been affected by sin and Lord we come into this world spiritually dead but we thank you when you make us alive in Christ because then we have spiritual eyes to see and maybe spiritual ears to hear.
01:06:54
And I pray that today Lord I pray that there would be those in this room today who maybe came into this room with eyes that couldn't see and ears that couldn't hear but maybe oh God by your mercy that you would open their eyes.
01:07:05
Maybe by your mercy that you would unstop their ears and Lord God that you would call them to yourselves in repentance and faith and that today it would be the day of salvation.
01:07:19
And Lord God and from this day forward that they would live for Christ.
01:07:23
And Lord for those who are believers Lord help us to never get caught in the dangerous trap of this world that tries to convince us that we are nothing but material.
01:07:34
Help us to be confident oh God that you who created us created us both body and soul.
01:07:42
And Lord God you are so good and you are so wise and you are so awesome.
01:07:49
May we trust in you not only as our creator but as our sustainer.
01:07:54
In Jesus name.
01:07:56
Amen.
01:08:02
Let's stand and sing together.
01:08:23
You give life You are love You bring light to the darkness You give hope You restore Every heart that is broken It's your breath So we pour out We pour out our praise It's your breath In our lungs So we pour out our praise To you oh You give life It's your breath In our lungs So we pour out our praise We pour out our praise It's your breath In our lungs So we pour out our praise To you oh Alright before we get to the bridge I want to say something just keep playing a D.
01:10:31
Alright we're going to have now at this time if you would like to participate in holy communion with us please come and receive the elements as we sing the rest of this song.
01:10:40
The bread and the cup are here for you to receive.
01:10:43
To the G.
01:10:45
All the earth will shout your praise Our hearts will cry These bones will sing Great are you All the earth will shout your praise Our hearts will cry These bones will sing Great are you Lord It's your breath In our lungs So we pour out our praise We pour out our praise It's your breath In our lungs So we pour out our praise To you oh Follow me It's your breath In our lungs So we pour out our praise We pour out our praise It's your breath In our lungs So we pour out our praise One more time Only It's your breath In our lungs So we pour out our praise We pour out our praise It's your breath In our lungs So we pour out our praise To you oh Amen We come now to the time for the table.
01:13:03
What an amazing thing it is that the Lord would focus on His body as what was given for us.
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When really His body suffering was not the aspect that we got to really see that was Him receiving in Himself the wrath of God.
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The outside physical was just the picture of what was happening in the torment that He was receiving from God.
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Remember this, what happened to Jesus Christ on the cross externally was nothing compared to what was going on internally as He received the wrath of God.
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And yet He tells us look to this and remember this because in remembering this on the outside we remember what happened on the inside.
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As the Bible says the wrath of God the cup of God's wrath He drank down to the very last drop on our behalf.
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So if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ this morning if you have received Him through repentance of sin and faith in His finished work remember with us today what He has done in His body on the cross.
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Let us share.
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Amen.
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It was good to be together today, wasn't it? Our Father and our God we are so grateful for the opportunity to be with Your people to praise Your name and to hear Your word.
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Lord, today is the Lord's day and therefore it is all about You.
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Lord, let us in our hearts be knitted to You in all that we do this week in Christ's name.
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Amen.