Sunday Sermons
Designed for God
Designed for God
“On the sixth glorious day of creation God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness’ (Genesis 1:26). By these simple yet stupendous words, God created man to correspond with Himself. We match God in significant ways. We can know Him and be related to Him, as God explains several ways in Scripture” (“Designed for a Relationship with God, David Holder, Focus Magazine, p. 4).
The Capacity to Know God
Though human, being partly physical, earthbound and limited in our knowledge, we still have the capacity to know God and have a meaningful and close relationship with Him. “God is the author of human reason just as He is the author of our faith. Although because of the Fall (human reason often ends up misused, Ephesians 4:18), this faculty is not so impaired that we cannot make rational decisions or discern truth from error. Otherwise, any attempt God would have made to communicate to us would have been in vain, for none of us would ever have been able to understand Him. But Scripture reveals that shortly after the Fall, God looked for Adam in the Garden. In spite of Adam’s recent separation from God through sin, he still heard God call him and understood precisely what God was saying (Genesis 3:8-10)” (Defending Your Faith, Dan Story, p. 14). The very fact that God has communicated with man in the Scriptures is based on the foundational principle that man can understand what God says, man can comprehend spiritual and abstract truths, and when confronted with the truth, man can discern that it is the truth (John 7:17; Ephesians 3:3-5; 5:17).
“He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
“God created us so that we have an eternal dimension—a sense of something beyond this world, a quest for what transcends here and now” (Holder p. 4). “Unlike the animals, immersed in time, we long to see them (events) in their full context, for we know something of eternity: enough at least to compare the fleeting with the ‘for ever’” (Kidner p. 39). “People have longing or desire to know the extratemporal significance of themselves and their deeds or activities” (Bible Knowledge Comm. p. 984). We have a sense of the infinite. Built into each one of us is the ability to look back into the past and forward into the future. Of all creatures on this earth, man is the one who thinks about where he has been and where he is going; yet we know just enough to make us realize the vast amount that we do not know. “We see enough to recognize something of its quality, but the grand design escapes us, for we can never stand back far enough to view it as its Creator does, whole and entire” (Kidner p. 39). We see ourselves and others searching for something fulfilling or meaningful “under the sun” only to come up empty handed, finding nothing that satisfies our deepest yearnings. When God decided to make us in His own image, He made the choice to make the foundation of our existence, a spirit being, rather than something purely physical. Because of this, nothing in this world can ever really meet our deepest needs, yet it equally means that we can actually have a meaningful relationship with God. Thus we should never be frustrated that physical things and activities cannot bring lasting satisfaction or that physical things cannot make us happy, because such a truth simply says that we were made for better, deeper and higher enjoyments.
“He understands and knows Me”
“Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me” (Jeremiah 9:23-24).
We were designed, not merely to know something about God, that is, that He exists, but rather, we are capable to knowing Him at a very personal level. We can actually understand not only His standards or laws, but why such laws exist.
The obligation to seek Him
“He made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:26-27). “They might feel their way to Him” (TCNT). The term grope means to verify by contact, to search for. “The verb ‘grope for’ pictures one groping in the dark (Jeremiah 10:23)” (Reese p. 631). “All things which God has given to man should encourage man to seek to know his Creator” (Boles p. 281). “Epicurus had taught that the gods, in their eternal tranquility, were too far off from man to trouble themselves about his needs” (Reese p. 631). Paul notes that one does not have to spend their entire lifetime groping for God, rather God can be found. This verse answers the criticism of those who claim that even if man would to be given many life times, man can never really find “the truth”. This verse asserts that to the contrary, often the truth is very near, and that the problem is often not finding the truth, but rather, accepting it once it has been found, or rather, once it has found us. When one reads Scripture, the problem on this earth is not an absence of truth, or unavailability or inaccessibility to truth, but rather, the rejection of truth that is all too clear and very prevalent (Romans 10:18-21). Rather than feeling that truth is rare, the very fact that every person on this planet is created in God’s image, and we all live in God’s universe, it is more accurate to say that man is being bombarded by truth on a daily basis (Romans 1:20; Psalm 19:1-2).
Seeing that all men and women are created in the image of God (James 3:9), it is the normal reaction to seek God, to ponder higher realities, and to find the answer to ultimate questions, on the other hand, it is abnormal not to be interested in such things. And God has made it where everyone can seek Him (Romans 1:20; Mark 16:15-16).
Designed to be Moral
Contrary to the claims of Calvinism, we are not born depraved and opposed to all good, “God made man upright” (Ecclesiastes 7:29). People might complain that the Bible requires too much, yet this complaint is born of lowered expectations, rather than having any basis in reality. It is silly to listen to the creature comment upon human potential, when the actual Creator has spoken. Man is hardly an expert on his abilities or potential because people often have too many self-serving reasons for not wanting to try, i.e., if they actually try everyone will see that the excuse they have been hiding behind is false. Here is what God expects of what He designed:
· “To become conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29).
· “For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:5).
· “We are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ” (Ephesians 4:15)
· “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18)
God does not only want us to understand His will, serve Him and know Him, He says that we were designed to become like His Son. We were purposefully designed with the ability to be unselfish, loving, patient, kind, good, self-controlled, and so on. Any moral quality that Jesus manifests, we are capable of manifesting or imitating that same moral principle. “In Christ mankind is allowed to see not only the radiance of God's glory but also the true image of man and in virtue of this transformation into the new man, they are realizing the meaning of their original status as creatures in God's image” (Hughes p. 119).
2 Corinthians 3:18
This verse is insightful concerning how are we transformed in the moral likeness of God.
“We all”: This is a real possibility for every Christian, even every day people can become like Christ.
“With unveiled face”: In the context, the veil that prevented so many Jewish people from believing in Christ was a misunderstanding of the Old Covenant (3:14). Yet there are many veils that can prevent us from truly seeing Christ and thus stand in the way of our own spiritual and moral transformation:
Veils
· “I can’t”: “Mom, dad, or my siblings have not remained faithful and so I can’t either”.
· “I won’t”: The selflessness of Christianity is not something I feel like doing. I choose to lead with my heart not my mind.
· “I am afraid”: That is, I am afraid that if I really work on being a Christian all of a sudden I will realize that all of my present excuses are nothing more than excuses. And that the real hindrance of my spiritual growth, has never been circumstances or someone else, rather, it has always been “me”.
· “I am afraid of seeing too much of Christ”: Because seeing all of Christ is initially very uncomfortable, for such exposes our own present selfishness. Yet seeing only a little of Christ never results in true change and growth.
“Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord”: “But reflect like mirrors the glory of the Lord” (Phi). “Seeing, as if reflected in a mirror” (TCNT). Yet to be transformed, we must continually behold the glory of the Lord. Our minds must ever be fixed upon Jesus as the object of our keenest interest and deepest love (Colossians 3:1-2; Hebrews 12:1-3). We must completely see Him in all His splendor, and this view must not be obscured by our own excuses, or other side issues. “Are being transformed”: “The present tense expresses the change as in progress; are being changed” (Vincent p. 309). “Into the same image”: The same image as the Lord. The goal of the Christian life, or, let's just say the only true legitimate goal of mankind, is to become more like Jesus Christ (Matthew 5:48; Ephesians 4:24; 5:1-2; Colossians 3:10). “From glory to glory’: “In ever-increasing splendor” (Phi). ‘From one degree of splendor to another” (Gspd). Our glory is not fading, but rather it grows, from present glory, to future glory, and from one level of spiritual growth to another. The Christian never hits a plateau or pinnacle only to be stranded there. The glory seen in Christ creates a similar glory in those who behold Him with unveiled hearts, and Jesus made all this possible. He died for our sins, thus freeing us to start a new life. He sent the Holy Spirit, who revealed the particulars of what to change about ourselves, and He will even transform our physical bodies at the resurrection, thus leading us to heights of even greater glory. “Surely if the mission of Moses, the greatest of all lawgivers, was glorious, much more glorious is the ministry of Paul, and of all true messengers of the gospel of Christ” (Erdman p. 50). So look at what God has done. He has created every one of us with the ability to know Him, know the truth when we hear it, love Him, serve others, be unselfish, and actually become like Him in many ways.
Mark Dunagan/Beaverton Church of Christ/503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net/mdunagan@easystreet.com
