We're continuing our series in Genesis and we're transitioning today from Genesis one to Genesis two. A couple of things before we read together—I just want to explain that I know Genesis raises all kinds of questions. We did a Q and A a couple weeks ago. Sometimes when people read Genesis one and two, they have two questions. One is: are these separate creation accounts? That's a really good question. They sound really different.

So just as an illustration of what's going on: Genesis one reads super structured and formal. It's a poem. We talked about forming and filling. Genesis two is super in the weeds. It's very intimate. And it can feel like we're reading two separate things, but it's really like two perspectives on the same event.

So if you imagine a car wreck—when there's a car wreck, the officer will show up at the scene and take down some notes. A couple of different people look at a car accident from very different perspectives. One would be a witness to a car accident who the officer would interview. They would say what they saw from their point of view, usually on the street, in the car behind them, describing something on the ground. The other person very interested in the car accident is, of course, the insurance adjuster, who's trying to figure out who's going to pay for this.

Both of those people are speaking of a car accident from different perspectives for different purposes. The witness is speaking about what they saw just to relate that to an officer. The insurance adjuster is trying to look at this from a high-up perspective of the timing of the light and the traffic patterns of the day, trying to assess responsibility.

In the same way, Genesis one and two are really two perspectives on the same thing. One is a 30,000 foot view from Genesis one. One's a sidewalk view from Genesis two. They're really describing, in a lot of ways, the same thing—two different perspectives.

Understanding Genesis as History

The other thing that people wonder sometimes when we read Genesis one and two is: Genesis two, does this feel like mythology or something? God's forming and blowing in the breath of life. What is this? As we read here just a second, you're going to see the author in Genesis two. Moses is trying to help us understand that what we're reading is in fact history and not fantasy.

You know how if you watch a Star Wars movie, the beginning of every Star Wars movie has this one line across the screen: "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away"? And you know from that to suspend your disbelief, everybody. But when we read Genesis two, we're going to read about a creation that takes place between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers, which you can find in modern Iraq. Mesopotamia—ancient Mesopotamia—means "between two rivers." Now we don't know the locations of the other two that are listed there, but what's intended is we're reading something that's meant to say: no, this really happened. We're treating this as history, not fantasy.

So we're going to jump in and we're reading a big chunk of the end of Genesis one and a lot of Genesis two. I know some of you are like, what's the deal? I mean, James preached last week on three verses and Bradford's got us reading half of Genesis. I know. Next week I'll do four verses. We'll come back to normal.

But we're going to read this, and since it's heavy lifting, we're going to try this. The first service did this really well. I believe in you. We're going to have women read the even number verses and we're going to ask the men to read the odd number verses. That's right—counting on a Sunday, we can do it, people. Let's try this together. First service did it really well. Let's see how y'all can do. You ready?

When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up. For the Lord had not yet sent rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the East, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground, the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good. Bedellium and onyx are there. — Genesis 2:4-12

The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Kush, and the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows East of Assyria, and the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden Of Eden to work it and keep it.

And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in that day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

Then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. So out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Alright. Give yourself applause. Well done with counting and reading. Y'all could almost go to first grade now. We're doing great.

Who Am I?

You know, in the musical Les Mis, the protagonist Jean Valjean sings this song, "Who Am I?" And it's this point where he is—and I want to offer that song to you as sort of a theme for today's sermon because I think we're all singing that song all the time. To grow up in America is to be always trying to figure out who you are, your identity. What makes you, you? We're sort of on this never ending identity quest.

And this is really unique in history. Five hundred years ago, no matter where you're born, most of the structures in your society answered that question for you. So let's say you grew up as a peasant farmer—pretty likely you're going to be a peasant farmer, or you're going to marry a peasant farmer. The institutions of your society are pretty defined. So you're raised in a village where you're going to grow up and probably be married and buried according to the customs and the religion of that village. Things are pretty entrenched and decided for you.

Now, no more, right? We live in a time where you get to answer the questions for yourself. What do I want to do with my life? And where do I want to live? And who do I want to be with? And those questions are really wide open and that's both really encouraging and great and also exhausting and confusing. That's a lot for us to figure out and that has huge implications for how we think about ourselves. It helps us—it makes us sort of create what I'll call a plastic identity. Feels kind of brittle. We're not sure if this is really who we are. And we're always sort of trying to figure out if this is really me and if this is really right.

My wife shared this article with me a couple of years ago by the historian and psychologist Philip Cushman that characterized this modern identity quest as the empty self. Like we have a self that we're trying to fill up all the time. We're trying to figure out who we are and construct and figure out how to answer those questions about who am I, right?

There's a great book that just came out this past year by Carl Truman, professor of biblical religious studies at Grove City College called The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, which I highly commend to you. It's about kind of the history of how the self came to be understood as it is today. And then also sort of the pressure that that brings to us.

There are lots of answers to the question, "Who am I?" that are around us all the time, swirling around us all the time. You can answer this question, who am I? Am I a collection of my experiences? Am I my emotions? And what my emotions tell me? Am I a product just of my upbringing or a victim of my upbringing? But how do I answer those questions? Who am I?

This is the main question that's going on behind all discussions around identity and gender and sexuality and this is a huge thing that we're all trying to answer all the time.

And the Bible's answer of course to that question, who am I? Is this phrase: image bearer. Or in Latin, maybe you've heard imago dei—image of God. You know, this is the foundation for a biblical anthropology and I know some of you are like, "biblical what?" Biblical anthropology. Biblical anthropology is simply what does God say about what it means to be a person?

The Church's Central Questions Through History

If you look over the last centuries of church history, you see that the church is always trying to answer some big questions. In the first five centuries of the church, they were wrestling with the question: How is God a Trinity? How's God three in one? And they're also trying to answer the questions of Christology: How is Jesus both fully God and fully human?

In the Middle Ages, we're wrestling with the question of ecclesiology: What is the nature and function of the church? During the Reformation, soteriology: What's the nature? How are we saved? What does that mean?

In the twentieth century, the question was pneumatology: What's the nature and function of the Holy Spirit?

In the twenty-first century, I can guarantee you this is the question: anthropology. What does it mean to be a person, and do we know how to answer that question anymore? What does God say about what it means to be a person?

Here's my contention: I give the modern church a D—and a big D at that—in being able to answer that question. In fact, this morning, I'm going to give the modern church 10 Ds as my outline for this sermon. Yes, a 10-D sermon this morning.

Now, if you're a seminary student, never do this to your congregation, okay? Never do this. These are nice people and we won't be here that long. I'm going to move through them, but I want you to memorize and remember these things.

The 10 Ds: What It Means to Be a Person

First: Dirtling

You weren't expecting that one, were you? Dirtling. So why do I say that? Because in Genesis 2, God makes a man and this is what we call this guy. We call him Adam, but that's not his name. You know, we call his wife Eve, but that's not exactly what the text says. The text says God calls him "the Adam." And Adam means "made from dirt." So the earthling—I like the dirtling. That's what I got from a commentator this week. I love that. But it means you're made from dust. This is who you are.

Now, why do we need to know this? Why does that matter to us? Because you aren't God. And this is what's so freeing about this. If you're on a quest to fill up the empty self, you no longer have the pressure of having to be the center of the universe. You're made from dirt, your body will go back to dirt. The pressure is off you having to make everything work in the world. This world doesn't have to be about you. That's good news for us.

Second: Dignity

Alright, number two: Who am I? I have dignity. I have dignity. This is how God describes his image bearers. He honors them as people who have inherent dignity.

Case in point: again, in Genesis 2, the woman is not given a name. She's not called Eve in Genesis 2. She's called Isha in Hebrew. Now, a man in Hebrew is Ish, and woman in Hebrew is Isha. That's really just a definition of who they are as a person. It's not until Genesis 3 that she is named—given a name, Eve, which means "mother"—which describes not who she is, but what she can do. What she's able to do. She's able to produce, to bear children.

So who are you? You are made with inherent dignity, and God defines you not because of what you can produce, but ultimately just because of who you are. You're an image bearer of God, and that's plenty.

We live in a world that defines people by what they can do, how much money they can make, how valuable they are to society. That's a result of the fall. God values us for who we are, just as people made in His image. Inherent dignity.

When Culture Gets This Wrong

Now let's test this out—a couple of test cases of what happens in our culture when we get this wrong.

If you have an empty self mentality, you'll make life's meaning and purpose about what you can produce and what you can do, rather than who you are. We do this all the time.

Let's take intelligence. Our world highly values intelligence—smarts really matter. I guess being smart is good, but there is nothing in scripture that seems to value high intelligence. You know, if we're looking through God's lens at the world, we see that the person with special needs and the genius both have value and dignity. Both are equal image bearers of God. God says, I'm about both of them equally—both beautiful to God.

What about a person who's young and attractive? Man, we love young and attractive in this culture. We will spend lots of money to look and seem young and attractive. I guess the Bible values that somewhat. I mean, the Bible mentions Esther was beautiful, David was handsome. But that's not what gives us value and worth, is it? God says: who you are, not what you can produce. You have inherent dignity no matter what we look like. No matter if you showed up at church this morning and you have a pimple.

If you are fifteen to fifty pounds over your BMI, you have inherent dignity. Isn't that good news? That's how God sees. That's what God values. We're so surrounded with empty self-orientation toward these things, but God says inherent dignity.

Who Am I? Different from All the Animals

Number three: Who am I? Different. Different. Different from all the animals. Yes, animals and people are both made on the sixth day of creation, but different. Notice how different.

God shapes the dirtling. God breathes into his nostrils the breath of life. — Genesis 2

This is really different from anything else we see being created. There's a unique, substantive quality—a substantive difference that God has given His image bearers, different from all other animals in this world.

A lot of theologians would say that's our ability to think, our ability to reason. Even in our scientific classification of human—homo sapiens—it means thinking, intelligent being, wise human. But theologians have described this in other ways too: our ability to appreciate beauty, our ability to love. There's a substantive quality. There's a difference between us and all the other animals.

And why is that so important? Well, a couple of reasons. In twenty-first-century America, you can kill an eagle egg, you can kill a baby eagle, and you'll go to prison and pay a stiff fine for that. You kill a baby human—that is not the same. The Bible says we're not just animals. You're not just a primate who wears clothes. Yes, there's a lot of biological overlap between humans and primates, but there's a substantial difference. Something happened that's really different between you and monkeys. You're not just a primate with clothes on.

This is really important because how you think about who you are determines how you think about what you do. If we listen to the creation accounts where God says different, that means something big. It means you don't live by your appetites and impulses. You're not just an animal who does whatever you feel like. You're different, so live differently.

Who Am I? Different with Differences

Number four: Who am I? Different with differences.

God makes both the man and the woman in His image. Both the man and the woman in His image, equally image of God. — Genesis 1:27

That's really striking. If you read a lot of the texts in the ancient Near East—Mesopotamia, Sumeria, Egypt—here's what you find in their creation accounts: Woman was made of a different substance than the man, or she was made for the man to serve the man. She was made only to make little more men. But not Genesis. This tells us that God had a very different purpose. God says both man and woman in His image.

In fact, the statement about God making the woman—it's the first time in Genesis when it says "not good," right? Everything else before this says, "It was good. It was good. It was good." And now it says, "not good." There's something in the creation of adam that's incomplete. We're not done yet. Something else is needed.

So we pick this up in verse 20. Adam's doing his work of naming all the animals, trying to figure out what to call this one and this one and this one. And it says:

There was not found a suitable helper. — Genesis 2:20

We often use the word "helpmeet," which has negative connotations in English—like "daddy's little helper." But the word there is ezer konegdo. The word ezer means helper, which is a word God uses of Himself. But konegdo means opposition. The helper who opposes. Isn't that fascinating?

She is made like Adam. Like him, but different. There's opposition. There's tension here. What's being communicated to us? Adam was made in God's image, but there was something incomplete in that, and there was a need for one who would be like him but a little different. There's needed tension in this relationship.

She's made from Adam's side. She's like him. She's of the same substance with him, and yet she's different, and that's good. That's a good thing. In other words, woman is the part that's missing in him. He's incomplete. Only when male and female are together are we complete. And I'm not talking about marriage.

Male and female together, we image God. This is why we place such a high value on men and women serving together in our church, working together in our church, trying to get space for leadership in our church. This really matters—imaging God together.

Again, what do we learn? Who am I? Different with differences. And this is so important. There's a complementarity to the two genders and those are good.

We live in a culture that says gender is what you make it. Your sexuality comes in whatever form you want it to. Those categories are ones that are outside of what God says in his word. One of the groups of people who are most struggling and wrestling with this—where the front lines of this whole thing is going on with regard to gender and sexuality—is middle school. So many middle schoolers are coming out as bisexual, changing their names, struggling with identity. Who am I? And God has said, "No, I've made you this way, male and female, and this is good. You can rest in what I say about who you are." That is such a gift—to not have to figure that out.

Who Am I? Dependent

Fifth, who am I? Dependent. God designed us as relational beings, designed for relationship with God and for one another. We're designed for relationship with him and for one another.

In the next chapter, in chapter three, we're going to read about how they listened for God walking in the cool of the day in the garden, and the implication is they were used to walking with God in the cool of the day in the garden. They were used to being with God. And we're designed not only for relationship as image bearers with Him vertically, but also horizontally. We're made for relationship with one another. This is one of the things that separates us from all other creatures. We're designed for dependent relationship.

This has huge implications for us thinking about your faith and why it matters whether you're a Christian or not. Believing in God is not just an elective that you can choose to take or leave in this life, and it's not just a product of growing up in a Christian home. The reality is all of us image bearers are made in God's image, put in His world. Whether or not you have parents who are believers, that says something about what you're made for. And if you reject the Christian faith or push it away, you're not just rejecting the faith of your parents—you're rejecting the way that you were designed. You're designed to be in dependent relationship with the God of the universe. That's how He's made you.

This is not just about course because you grew up in a Christian home. Rejecting that is actually defying your design. It's like, let's pretend you're an ice cream truck. You're an ice cream truck. What's an ice cream truck designed for? Delivering frozen treats. It's so great to be an ice cream truck. But you want to drive over to the airport because you want to fly. You feel like you're made on the inside to fly. But you get out on the runway and you keep going—you're just going to hit the end of the runway because you're made for dependent relationship on the ground. You're not made to fly. God has designed you like this, designed for dependence.

Who Am I Made For? Dominion

Number six, you ready? Who am I made for? Made for dominion. Dominion is a word that describes our function. This is over and over in this passage. You read in chapter one, verses 26 through 27:

He made the humans to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air. — Genesis 1:26-27

This doesn't mean that we get to trash the environment. That's not what's in view. What's in view with that language is stewardship, management. God has designed His image bearers for ruling in His stead.

Now, this is where this comes in the ancient Near East. In the ancient Near East, this is how a conquering king would rule a nation. He would either set up statues of himself all over the conquered territory or place a vice regent or governor over that territory. Both meant to communicate the same thing. Both of them were viewed as the ruler in small form in this place—that ruler's presence by that statue reflecting his image in this place, saying, "This is ruling over this territory," or the governor that he established ruling over the territory. So much so that if you deface the statue, you're dead. They kill you for that because you're striking against the ruler.

Here's what God does. Think about how they thought about this in this context. God is separate from the creation, and he puts an image bearer in this world to rule on his behalf, to represent him, to have governance over all those things on his behalf.

You're made to be in some ways extending God's rule. Couple years ago, my wife wrote a paper on this for class, and I love how she put it. She says, "Ken and king"—made to be kin in his likeness, and king to exercise dominion or authority over whatever part of this world that God has put you in.

So that's whether you're a stay at home parent or whether you're taking classes at university right now, whether you're in real estate, whether you work in a lab, wherever you are, God has put you in those places as His imago dei. You are an image bearer of God. You're like the little statue or the governor that he has set up in that place to represent him. This is so important because if I understand who I am rightly, then I can understand what am I supposed to do. God gives you lots of freedom to choose a job. Pick whatever is according to your passions. But in all those, the vocation is really the same: kin and king exercising his dominion.

God's Delight

Who am I? This is God's delight. What does God say at the end of day six after he creates the humans? Remember, it's like the good, good, good, good. What does he say at the end of day six? He says—flipping awesome. That's the Jeff Bradford translation of that. This is amazing. And he's not saying that because it's like, yeah, I crushed that. Of course, God crushed that. He crushed the whole of the creation thing. What he's saying is, I delight in this in a particular way that's different from every other part of my creation. I delight in this human that I have made.

One of the problems with reading Genesis one and two as if it's a lab report on the creation of the world is that you miss the actual point. It's a love story. God creates His image bearers and is like, "Flipping awesome! I love this." And he takes His delight—humanity—and puts them in a place called Eden, which in Hebrew means delight. He takes the pinnacle of creation, whom he delights in, and puts them in the place of his delight, just for their enjoyment.

I was at a coffee shop last week, not very far from here. I saw someone wearing a trucker cap. On the front of it said "God's favorite." I looked at it and was like, man, that's presumptuous. Then I was like, no, actually. That's right. If I could imagine Adam and Eve in the garden, they're naked except for the trucker cap that says "God's favorite." Right? Delight.

In Psalm 8, which was our call to worship this morning, we read this:

What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You gave him dominion over the works of your hands; you put all things under his feet. — Psalm 8

What does God love most in his creation? What does he delight in the most? People. David is waxing eloquent about the works of God's hands—the stars and the mountains and all the things he's set in place. But he moves from there to talking about people. He's like, you know what? I like the beach and the mountains. That's what David's saying. That's where I want to go. I want to see beaches and mountains and national parks. But God, you delighted in humans. They are the pinnacle of your creation.

What does God love? What is most beautiful to him? People made in his image. I remember planting a church in Philadelphia. One of the guys who was a mentor for me and the other guy who planted with said, "You know, we love to be out in the wild. We love parks and ocean and mountains. What does God love? God loves cities." You see at the end of the book—Revelation 21:20-21—there's this huge city God's building. God's got this massive city that he's building because what's beautiful to him are his image bearers. That's what he delights in.

Diminished but Not Destroyed

Who am I? Diminished but not destroyed. Over the next couple of weeks, we're gonna look at Genesis 3, the fall. While in the fall, the image bearers lost so much, we didn't lose the image entirely. It's diminished, but it's not destroyed. Our confessional documents say it this way: we were created in original righteousness and holiness. Of course, we lost those things, but we didn't lose all of what it means to be an image bearer. That's still preserved.

So if you look at this list and you're like, "Who am I?"—you can still sing some Jean Valjean this afternoon. You can still sing these things of yourself. I'm a darling. I'm made with dignity. I'm different with differences. I'm made for dependence. I'm made for dominion. I'm His delight. The image in me is diminished, but it's not destroyed.

These things are still true for me today. This is you. This is who you are. You want to know who you are in the morning? You want to wake up and be like, "I don't need this cup anymore or this pitcher"? Remember, this is who you are.

Point 10: It Directs Us to Jesus

And finally, number 10: what does this all do? It directs us to Jesus. And that's outside the scope of this passage for this morning. We'll cover that next week for sure. But all of this connects us to Jesus—who is the ultimate image bearer, who is the second Adam, who comes to do what Adam failed to do. It directs us to Jesus. More on that next week.

But here's what I want to get to this morning. This morning, I want to invite you to throw away the pitcher and the cup. We're so exhausted from this. Good Christian people who know the truth and live out this stuff and love Jesus—we're also just like the rest of the world doing this all the time. Empty self. "What do I need to feel good about myself again?" You know, God has already said it. And my invitation to you this morning is that you would rest in what God says. You don't need this anymore. Rest in who he says you are.

But Who Are They?

Now, let me finish the sermon this way. We can't finish right here. We gotta ask one more question. So we can't answer the question "Who am I?" without also asking the question "Who are they?"

You know what I mean by they. We use they all the time, especially when we watch the news or on social media. We complain about they and them. "What are they doing? How are they ruining our way of life? What are they up to in this world?" And let's just not pretend. Church is not a place for pretend. Everybody has a they. Let's just be honest—everybody has a they. Somebody that we love to hate, somebody we love to blame for what's going on in our culture.

But see, we have to paint with the same brush if we're actually going to say we believe in a biblical anthropology. We have to paint they in the same way we paint I.

So let's ask the question: Who are your they? Is it the gay community? Who are they? Made in the image and likeness of God. Is it Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and the Republicans? Who are they? Pinnacle of creation. What about Joe Biden and AOC and the Democrats? Who are they? God's delight.

Is it maybe people in your class at school? Maybe you have a bully that you're dealing with. Who are they? They are the pinnacle of creation. Is it your boss, your coworkers? You're tired of your job? I mean, who's not tired of their job? Many of you have told me this. Right now, it's a hard time. Is that your they? Who are they? They have the fingerprints of God on their very soul.

Is it wealthy people who are in the highest tax bracket who are ruining everything? Who are they? Likeness of God. What about poor people who are taking advantage of the system? Who are they? Image bearers of God. Is it CRT professors at liberal universities? Who are they? Imago Dei.

See, who are your they? You know, if we're gonna believe in a biblical anthropology, we gotta use the same brush we paint everybody with. We gotta see the world the same way that God sees you.

This world would be great if we had a lot more Christians who could define a biblical anthropology. That would be great. And it'd be really great if we had Christians who could define a biblical anthropology and who got rid of the empty self paradigm. And that would be even better.

But you know what we really need? Christians who have a biblical anthropology, who've thrown away the cup, and yet apply the same orientation of image bearer to themselves that they do to everybody around them. The people that they watch on TV, the people they disagree with, the people who are their neighbors who drive them nuts, the people who they work with, the people who are in politics—seeing everyone. This is how God made the world. Imago Dei.

Remember the Imago Dei this week. It is one of the highest compliments you could pay somebody else: "Image of God." I could only think of one higher compliment than you could pay somebody besides Imago Dei, and that's this: "Child of God."

And my prayer is that the children of God in this room, watching on TV, outside under the tent, the people that are part of this church would begin to see with new eyes the way God sees and therefore love with open hearts the way God loves.

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your word. There is nothing like your word, and yet these words are hard for us. They challenge and convict, they cut. Lord, we want to hear and long to hear how much we are your delight.

Lord, how you've made us that we might rest in that. And Lord, we pray this morning for grace to also apply that to people around us. People in our church, people in our family, people in our work, people in our schooling, people in our neighborhoods, and people in our culture.

We pray, Father, that you help us to live into and believe all that you say we are. We pray these things in Jesus's name. Amen.