White: Light, Relationship and Life with God
Genesis 2:4-24
I used to teach Scripture classes at Kirrawee High School. Standing in front of year nines with a skateboard covered in colours and some beads on my wrist. I had no idea what I was doing.
I'd been asked to be the youth minister because my senior minister had no other options. I said no six times. I told my wife Louise, "I can't play guitar, I can't sing, I can't lead, I can't preach. I don't know anything about ministry or evangelism."
Louise said, "But you can love people. Start there."
So I did. At some point, two teenagers, Sharon and Daniel, introduced me to the Jesus beads. Sharon explained what the colours meant, and it was the first time I'd ever heard a teenager tell me the gospel so clearly and quickly.
Green: God created the world.
White: He made us to be His friends.
Black: We rebelled against God. The Bible calls that sin.
Red: Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sin.
Yellow: If we trust in Jesus, God gives us the Holy Spirit so we have certainty we're going to be with Him in heaven forever.
That simple presentation eventually saw hundreds of kids from Kirrawee High School become Christians. They wore those beads so much that the school made a uniform rule banning them, so they hid them in their skater shoe laces instead.
Created in God's Image
Humanity has been created by God in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). When God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2:7), and the psalmist would later ask, "What is mankind that you are mindful of them?" (Psalm 8:4-6). Human beings are created by the intentional and personal act of God. We didn't arise by chance or impersonal forces.
And how did God make us? Out of dirt.
God took the dirt we walk on every day, the stuff we don't even think about unless we're growing vegetables and made the most special, beautiful thing in creation. Doesn't that say something about our God?
God formed Adam from dust and breathed His own spirit into the dirt, and it became human. This reveals that humanity is both creature (finite, dependent on God) and God-breathed (dignified).
Being made in God's image means humans are created to know God personally.
I once asked a couple, "How does being a Christian make a difference to your situation?" They said the usual things: "I pray, I read my Bible, I go to church." But I pushed harder: "No, what does it mean to be a Christian? To have the Holy Spirit alive in your heart? To be remade as a human the way you were designed in the first place?"
We reflect God's moral character (Jeremiah 9:23-24, Ephesians 4:24). We represent God on earth, we are his vicegerents, rulers under God's rule, looking after this planet and making it habitable.
Jesus came as the second Adam to make everything right again that the first Adam broke. Humans are meant to reflect God's moral character and represent His rule within creation. That gives us dignity.
Created for Relationship
"It is not good for the man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18).
This is so special. Humanity is created for relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—one God, three persons— that have existed in relationship together forever.
When God made us in His image, He didn't make us to be alone. At first, Adam was alone, then God said, "Fall asleep, Adam." He took one of Adam's ribs and created the first woman, Eve.
Adam's response almost makes me cry: "Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh" (Genesis 2:23).
Paul later says when two people get married, they become one flesh. Adam and Eve were made to be together, for mutual dependence and partnership, for fruitfulness and community.
Their relationship was meant to reflect their own relationship with God. God is in relationship and He made us in His image to be in relationship with each other.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, "Two are better than one. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up."
Sometimes we feel alone. Sometimes we have times by ourselves. But human flourishing is designed to be in community. We're not made for autonomy but committed, covenantal relationship. If we find ourselves with no other humans in relationship, Jesus says, "I am in relationship with you. No one can take you out of my hands."
Created as Moral and Accountable Creatures
God placed Adam and Eve in the garden with a clear command: "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:16-17).
Philosophers, atheists and naysayers ask, "Why was God so mean and put that tree there?"
You could ask the Australian government why they let KFC into the country too.
The tree makes sense to me. God didn’t make robots. He was giving them choice.
True relationship is gifted, not demanded.
Adam and Eve were morally responsible, capable of obedience, accountable to God's revealed will. God wasn't asking them to do something they couldn't do.
I once walked into McDonald's with a KFC burger just to see what would happen. The manager came out and said, "You can eat that outside, but you can't eat that in here."
Makes sense, doesn't it? You can't eat KFC in Maccas. You can't be truly human unless you obey God's commands.
When Adam and Eve fell, they were asked to leave. But humans have freedom. It's real, but it's bounded. Not freedom to define good and evil independently, but freedom to live under God's rule if we choose to.
The same choice is before all of us. What Adam and Eve chose that day, I think we all would have chosen. But that choice was and still is ours.
Jesus makes no mistake: "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).
True Humanity
Many people think being a Christian is restrictive. However my response would be that human beings are created by God in His image, endowed with dignity, designed for relationship, and placed under God's life-giving authority. True human freedom and flourishing are found in living as accountable creatures before our Creator.
The white bead represents that God made us to be His friends, to walk in the light of His ways. Could you explain that to someone? Could you tell them what it means to be created in God's image, designed for relationship, and called to joyful obedience?
That's what it means to be truly human.
This sermon is part of the Colours of Life series, telling the gospel story in five simple colours. Soul Revival Church gathers across the Sutherland Shire [Kirrawee, Yarrawarrah, Miranda, Cronulla] and Ryde.