You Are Somebody In Christ 1

A. In the garden man walked in perfect fellowship with God. Adam knew who he was, where came from and why he was there. Adam and Eve had no identity crisis.
1. They knew they were unique. Only pair of their kind. Ruled over all other creation in the world.
a. God's crowning masterpiece. Personally molded in God’s image for fellowship with God.
(A) "You are Adam, Lord over all I've given you. Go tend the garden and keep it.”
(1) Animals not naturally do work unless trained. Apes not work, dogs do not build bridges. You have to be in the likeness of God to do that.
(a) GEN 2:15. God told Adam, “Go work.” What is God saying?
(b) “Adam, you are like Me. I worked six days and rested. Now you work six days and rest one day to celebrate what I did for you.”
(2) Work had dignity. Adam kept and dressed the garden. No one else could do
that. You had to be like God to do that. You work six days and rest one day to
contemplate your likeness to God.
(a) From that contemplation Adam knew who he was. Spend one day rejoicng
in the realization of that knowledge.
(b) Man is different from all other creation. Birds build nests, Rabbits dig
warrens. They do that by instinct. Inborn habit or pattern of survival.
(B) Man is different. Lives by exclusive alternatives. Choices. Accept consequences.
(1) Chose what you will be. Lifestyle you'll live. Responsible for your choices.
(a) Man's relationship with God has always been that way. Based on choices
(b) JOSH 24:15.
(c) Look at the alternatives you face in life. Weigh those alternatives. Weigh the
evidence and then chose one or the other. You will be held responsible for
every choices you make. God wants every choice you make to count.
(1) Why has God required man face the exclusive alternative and make choice?
(1) Because you’re like God. Every choice God has eternally made has mattered.
(2) Because you are created in God's likeness, you are a morally responsible being. Therefore you are morally responsible for every choice you make!
b. God said, "Adam, I put in the middle of garden, the tree of knowlege of good & evil."
(A) What’s God saying? “Adam you are faced with an exclusive alternative. Every day you
are faced with the responsiblity of making choices and then you must live with the
consequence of your choices. Every monkey can eat and it not matter. Every
stubborn, hard headed Mule can eat and it does not matter. Why not matter? They not
made in My Image but you are. You can choose and I tell you not to choose and in
making that choice you will become the mature, responsible, spiritual person I made
you to be.”
(2) Hope you can undstand the crystal purity of that magnificent logic.
(1) By the choices you make you learn the differance between right and wrong,
good and evil.
(2) You learn that nothing justifies, excuses doing wrong. You are responsible
for your choices and you will suffer the consequence of wrong choices. That's
how you learn discipline, self control. That's how you learn to love good and
virtue. That’s the process that enables you to become God's child and
become like God.
(3) That's Peter's statement in 2 PET 1:3-4.
(1) We learn by the process of choosing and doing.

(2) God has called us to make the right choices in life. For what purpose?
(c) To put off the man of sin and take on the divine nature of God. To become
like Him. But Adam chose not to do that.
B. You know the story, Adam deliberately choose to declare himself indapendant of God.
a. "My wife talked to a snake and he says you lied to me. I can be as smart as God...I can be
my own God. I can eat and not die. I can be as smart as you.”
(A) But God said in GEN 2:16-17, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat: But
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that
you eat thereof you shall surely die.” God placed before Adam an exclusive alternative. To eat or not to eat.
(1) What God said came true. When you chose you must live with the consequence of
your choices.
(a) Adam, you eat and you will die. And he did. And He died inside. He died
spiritually.
(b) It was several hundred years before his body died. That was just the belated
announcement of what had happened inside back at the garden.
(2) Adam dies spiritually. He forgot who God was. Afraid of God. How can that happen? That's what the Bible says, GEN 3:8-10.
(3) No earthly reason to fear God. One day Adam has being. He knew God gave him life.
(1) Gave a wife, complete provision. God loved him. Adam knew that.
(a) When faced with an exclusive alternative. He chose self and the things self
craved.
(1) Adam forsook God and made himself his own god.
(2) Because of sin Adam wandered out of Eden in spiritual darkness and moral twilight.
(a) Watch son follow in footsteps of rebellion. Destructive consequence of sin.
(1) Now live with the torment, anguish and consequence of his own Sin and Rebellion.
(3) Watch Eve (own image) grow old from toil, sickness, pain and die.
(a) To late Adam realizes stupidity, tragedy, consequence and bitter fruit of sin.
(b) All this came as result of making one wrong choice in life. Adam dies.
b. But the story not end there. Tragedy. Man who had it all and lost it because he became
selfish and in that selfish decision brought death to all his family.
(A) But God is a God of love. Provided a way for every Adam to find way home.
(B) Still calling, "My Adam, My Adam where are you?" Stand at the fork in strait and
narrow road. You have a choice to make this hour. Which fork in the road will you
take as God stands callng?
(4) Acts 20:32.

Spur 8/19/2001 am