Only Human
In the Beginning - Part 2
Sunday, August 29, 2021
Genesis 2:4-25
…. then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Genesis 2:7-8
Listen to this week’s sermon here:
But I’m only human…
How often have we uttered these words?
We as humans are often our own worst critics. We are good at talking down to ourselves. We are good at making excuses for our mistakes, and sometimes even for our intentional sin when we give into seemingly harmless temptations.
But the truth is “only human” should be the highest honor we could receive. In a sense we might say that God himself was the first one to call us “only human”, and he never meant it in a negative way.
As God breathed formed us by hand into his own image and breathed his very breath into our lungs and gave us authority over every other living thing on earth, God gave us the highest honor that one could ever bestow…
Greater than any award… greater than a military or presidential medal, more honor than anyone could possibly bestow on us…
God essentially says – “you are my son… you are my daughter… I made you. I gave you life. I loved you before you ever existed and out of that love I wove every part of you together. What I have created is good… but you, my child…. You are “supremely good”
And not only that, but I trust you to care for everything else I have created. Not to abuse and take advantage of the earth or the plants or the animals, to destroy it or misuse it’s great resources… But I trust you to take care of it, as a parent might entrust an older child to take care of their first pet… to love all of creation, and especially one another, as I have loved you.”
Wow! Just imagine what it does to our Father’s heart when we mess up or hurt another of his children and brush it off because we are “only human.”
Because somehow, we’re not good enough?
How is it that we can be created “supremely good” by God and then somehow not be good enough for one another or even for ourselves?
God is perfect… What God makes is perfect. To say we are anything less…. Even to be anything less is an insult to our creator.
God commanded Moses not to make any idols or images of God because nothing made by human hands could come close to reflecting the Glory of God… and yet we ourselves are made in God’s image…. We are created to be the perfect reflection of God’s glory on the earth.
God himself desired to create us, and then he sat down to dwell with us. He walked with us personally in the Garden.
What more does God have to do to remind us how special we are, how loved we are, how beautiful we are?
What does “being human” mean to you?
Do you see it as a gift or a limitation? As a strength or a weakness?
As you look in the mirror this week, ask God to help you see yourself through his loving eyes. Hear your Father say, “I love you, my child. I made you beautiful. Be beautiful. I made you good. Be good. I love you.”
Listen to the song below and imagine God taking all of your brokeness and pain in his hands and forming and shaping it into something new. Imagine your life bursting forth like a sprout pressing up through the hardened soil to reach the sun. God makes beautiful things out of the dust. The same God still makes beautiful things out of us.