The following message was given at Trinity Bible Church in Powell, Wyoming. By God's grace, he'll be back in a couple weeks. We're thankful that he could take some time and be with his family and enjoy the summer. If you'd open up with me your copy of God's Word to Genesis 131. I'm going to read that portion of scripture. I actually read it last week as well. I don't want to belabor All that we can find in Genesis chapter 1 and 2 about being an image bearer. But I do want to draw out as much as we can. Not something that I've heard taught on much, but I think it's so important that we really grasp the depth and the meat of what's there. Because our fundamental identity as humans is image bearers. And I think we need to be able to think through that in times of struggles and trials and so forth. This is God's Word, Genesis 1.31. And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day of the Lord God, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. 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 God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground. And a mist was going up from the land, and it was watering the whole face of the ground. And 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. I'm gonna skip to verse 15. 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 the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. This is the word of the Lord. And Lord be pleased to add our blessing as we consider his word this morning. Well, my real goal at going through this series is that we would be overwhelmed. And that you would just be overwhelmed by an understanding of who we are as image bearers. This is my fifth sermon, and we have yet to leave this one topic, what it means to be an image bearer. We've talked about what it means to be handcrafted or uniquely handcrafted as bodied souls with gender and purpose. We've talked about our home being that of the garden. abiding with God. We've talked about the honor of being an image-bearer, crowned with glory and honor. We've talked about our head and all the capacities God has given us through language and emotion and will to know this God and interact with this God and abide with this God and to interact with each other to fulfill this purpose. As we considered hands, this dominion mandate, We have a purpose, a calling. We're not like other creatures that just live off of instinct, that God has given us something to do. And we are to be busy about that thing. We've talked, yeah, today we're going to cover the last three H's that I want to pull out of this. And that one, first one is holiness, knowing and loving this God. The second one is our heart, worshiping this God. And the last one is happiness, enjoying this God. Well, we're going to begin in Genesis 2, 16 and 17. I'm going to kind of skip around as I piece this together for us this morning. In verse 15 the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work and keep it that was from last week We talked about this Dominion mandate that he was put there He had a purpose to do these this language is specific to this priestly role that this man and woman were given this priestly role in the garden and a Dominion mandate and they were able to perform that role perfectly They were not disqualified in any way. They did not need to be sanctified or cleansed in order to go into the garden to complete their task. They were righteous and holy and acceptable for this task. Verse 16, and the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden. I think it's important, and sometimes we just skip over that. But when we see that phrase, and the Lord God command the man saying, The first thing that he says is not the restriction, or it's not the law. The first thing he says is, remember my bounty. Remember my character, my love for you. Remember that it is all for you. You may surely eat of every tree in the garden. It's all yours. Look at it all. Behold it. It's amazing, and you'll never run out of diversity and the amazingness of the garden. You may surely eat of it all. and puts on display this bountiful character of God and this relationship to His people that He just wants them to be overwhelmed and pleased with all of it. And then, in verse 17, we read, But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. And we have one restriction. the law, this positive law, added to the moral law, just the natural law that's being worked out of these image bearers. We have this positive law, this statement, that there's just one tree and you shall not eat of it. I think sometimes as we think about these things from our vantage point, We say, well, that tree must have been right in the middle of the garden. It must have been spectacular. And there must have been this intense desire to be drawn to this tree. It's kind of like little kids when you say, please don't touch the stove. And you can see everything within them is just bound up. And they just can't. They walk by it. Everything within them wants to go over and touch the stove. And there's this battle going on. And Adam and Eve were in the garden. And there's this tree. And they just were consumed with it and thought about it all the time. And everything within them wanted to go over and take the apple and eat. No. That was probably the last time they ever considered it until Satan showed up. In the bounty of everything else, there was this one tree. They looked at it and said, OK, that's the one we're not going to eat of. And then they got immersed in the bounty of God's provision for them. There was no struggle. There was no temptation. There was no draw to this tree. Like, there wasn't this babble going on. Our experience, right? When God comes to us and says, don't eat of the tree, there's something in us, as Paul talks about in Romans 7. There's this thing that rises up, this law of sin that draws me to it. Now I can't hardly stop thinking about it. No, that's not the way it was. This was probably the last time they ever even considered it. Because they were living in the bounty and the beautiful provision of God. Well, they were loving God as image bearers. God had imprinted them with this moral code. It just flowed out of every part of their faculties. All the things we talked about last week were oriented to God, were in submission to God, and were living out according to His perfect will. There was no struggle for sin. Everything was being done based on this moral imprint. They had a special relationship with God. And in this abiding relationship, as they abided with God, it just flowed out of them to naturally live for His glory, for His good, according to His purposes. There was no friction there. It was the freest, purest sense of human expression at this time. They were just full of love for God. and for one another, eventually. We see this when Jesus gets this test, or he's trying to be tricked by a Pharisee lawyer that asks him, which is the greatest commandment? And he says, well, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. In the garden, that would have been being lived out perfectly, with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, loving this God, in this intimate relationship with God. And then Jesus says, he issues one more summary law, and the second is like it, that you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. That's the context of the moral purity in the garden. Perfect love for God and a perfect love for others. It just was everything about us was this free outward expression of that love for God. Out of that love came just a natural inclination to obey God, to trust God, to walk according to his principles. Our entire life would have been lived as a full, pure, free, abounding love for God. And out of that, we would have just done everything in our natural capacity to would have honored Him and would have been according to His moral law. So there was a holiness to the people. They were holy. They were righteous. They were good. Nothing had contaminated them. The last statement of chapter 2 says that they were naked and not ashamed. And that, hopefully we'll get to that, understanding what shame is more completely. But there was no consideration of themselves. They had never doubted, wondered what you thought of them. They had never experienced anything but absolutely pure, free, full love from you. They had never felt like you were judging them or evaluating them. They never had a sense that they need to cover themselves in any way. And the only thing that they had ever experienced is this full, pure, free love for you. They'd never thought of anything other than that free love. And so out of that love comes just this life of holiness, that they live perfectly according to God's perfect will. Second, this heart that they had. Let's look at, let's begin in chapter 1, verse 31. And God saw everything that he had made, And behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the hosts of them. God stood back over His creation, and He took it all in, and He said, Behold, it's very good. He saw everything he saw that what the accomplishment the completion of his work And that everything that he saw was perfect according to his perfect. Will and then he said behold Behold means to give attention to something to take it all in to admire it admire its excellence where he said behold Something we want to draw our attention to and that's what he said. I saw everything and behold with great attention He said it was very good, the highest excellence, worthy of attention and focus, could not become better. And we see it was complete. There's nothing left to do. He had accomplished all that he set out to do. Chapter 2, verse 2. And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. The last day within this week, was the day of rest. He had completed everything that he had set out to do in the six days of creation. But God was not actually finished because he didn't just disengage on the seventh day. He didn't remove himself on the seventh day. Something remarkable happened on the seventh day. God basically sat and looked at all that he had done and said, behold, it's very good. And then he established this time period. That time, it was a day. He established this time period where he just took it in. He just sat in approval over all of his creation and rested. He had worked and worked, and he had accomplished it. And now he just sat in approval of everything that he had done. This would be like an artist, maybe a famous artist, maybe Frederick Remington, completing all of these artworks, putting them in a gallery, and then he just goes in and he observes and he takes it in. And he invites you in and he says, will you sit with me? Will you sit with me and just behold this, the beauty and the grandeur and the magnificence of this creation? And that's really what's happening here as he rested on the seventh day. And he begins by inviting us into that same thing. Humans were created. What were they doing? Well, we find out later in Exodus 2, they'd stopped working. They were no longer toiling and working. They were observing. They were acknowledging. And they were sitting there with the creator of it all, just marveling. at what was before them. God wants us to delight in him. Chapter 2, verse 3, so God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. First of all, we see that God blessed the seventh day. Well, what does that possibly mean? He blessed the seventh day. This idea of blessing is a salute or putting on display something. There's some in some sense, kneeling down before it. But I like the idea of a salute. In the military, we salute those that we want to honor, those that we want to show respect to. And that's really what happened here. God blessed the seventh day. In a sense, he's putting us aside, he's establishing the parameters of it, and he's blessing it, a sign of perfection, that nothing needs to be added, a sign of dignity and honor, a sign of recognition of something amazing. He blessed this day, and then He made it holy. Well, was it unholy before He made it holy? In the garden, what could have been unholy about it? Was it contaminated? Was it not being used according to His perfect will? What was unholy about it? No, it's not about sanctifying it or cleansing it. It's about establishing it for a specific purpose. We see he made it holy, but there's nothing unholy about it. It's holy because it's God's day. He occupies the day. And he says, this is my day. It's a holy day. It's not like a common day where you're out laboring and working and toiling. It's not a common day. It's a holy day. It's my day. It's a day to be filled with me and the wonder of who I am. Made it holy. It was a holy moment because God rested. This is more than just taking a break. It's actually resting with God, observing what God is observing, beholding what God is beholding. It is given as a holy day. And we begin to see this pattern that's established that we see all of humanity built on this seven day pattern. Even before the law was instituted on Mount Sinai, we see this pattern. Hey, listen, go collect the manna, but collect twice. Get twice as much the day before the Sabbath so you don't have to collect any on the Sabbath. It was way before the moral law was actually codified or put into writing. We see this pattern that's established. It's a holy day. Chapter 2, verse 2. And on the seventh day, God finished work He had done and rested on the seventh day. God offered Himself on the Sabbath. He, for the purposes, for this, this was the purpose of the Sabbath. He's offering this day and He occupies this day in the sense of holiness. It is to be about Him and He invites us in. The fourth commandment, he says to us, remember the Sabbath day. But what does it say then? It doesn't say rest, although rest is a component of what we're to actually do. What is the commandment to do? It says, remember and keep it holy. to occupy it with the things of God, to keep God at the center of it, to keep it filled, not necessarily sanctifying it, but to say, this day is God's day, and we're going to still respond to it like we would have responded to it in the garden, sitting with God, beholding what He is beholding, orienting ourselves to Him as He puts His glory and majesty on display. In Isaiah 58, we read that God gave us the Sabbath day because he wants us to delight in him. And it's still in the garden. He invites the humans in to this day. And he says, will you not just delight with me in all that I have created for you and what it puts on display of my very character and love for you? Will you not delight in it? Isaiah 58, if you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy day of the Lord honorable, if you honor it, not going your own way, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly, then, it's an if-then statement. If you will not do your own thing on the Sabbath, and if you will honor it, then, you shall take delight in the Lord. It is God's provision for us that we would continue to behold what He beholds, delight in what He delights in, that we'd be filled with awe and wonder as we sit with God and marvel at His redemptive work now, not just creation, but redemptive work. He says, if you will orient yourself to the Sabbath day, then you shall take delight in the Lord. We want to say, well, if I delight in the Lord, then I'll honor the Sabbath. And God says, no, it just doesn't work that way. If you will honor the Sabbath, I will create within you a growing, maturing delight in God. Then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth. This is just this amazing concept of the thinking of even back in the garden, the heights of the earth, where you can behold all of it with this ecstasy. I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob, your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. The Sabbath day was given to us in the garden, and it caused us to delight in the Lord. What a kind provision, even after all of our rebellion and all of our turning to our own sin and our own way, God needing to send his son into this creation, into the sin, curse, brokenness of it, to die on a cross to take our sin and our curse upon himself so that we could be forgiven. And he says, all I want you to do is love me and be grateful. And we say, wait, I can't even do that. I'm so distracted by the things of the world. He goes, can't we just love me? And we say, yeah, I'll love you, but we don't. And He's so patient and kind with us. And even in that redemptive work, He says, the Sabbath is for you. The Sabbath is for you. I'm not going to condemn you. I'm not going to hold these things against you. I want you to delight in me. And I've given you the Sabbath as a means to do that. So we rejoice in that and are very grateful for it. The last point this morning is happiness. Enjoying God and His creation. And I've saved this the last, because it's my favorite thing to talk about. Genesis chapter 2, verse 8 and 9. 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. Well, if you have been around the Reformed church world much. You're going to hear of catechisms, which are a teaching tool. They were originally designed to teach people the faith based on a question and answer. And there's lots of them out there. The Westminster is one of the most popular. I just said that, and then I realized it's probably not to everybody in here. The Westminster is a very good catechism. The very first question to that catechism says what is the chief end of man? Now the Sunday school class the middle school Sunday schools class is going to be going through the Baptist catechism And this is actually the second question. What is the chief end of man or? What the reason for our existence? What is our life about and the answer is to know God and Enjoy him forever to know this God and enjoy Him forever. While abiding with God in the garden, full of knowledge, having conversations with Him, seeing Him put His creation on display, we know in the garden much about God, intimate knowledge of God. And so in the garden, that would have been full and free. But he also wanted us to enjoy him forever. You might ask, well, how does he go about causing us to enjoy him? Well, God is full of bounty. And his creation is spectacular. It's filled with colors and diversity and complexity and just a magnificence that is overwhelming to all of the creatures, especially humans. But God wanted us to experience pleasure See we weren't just created with instincts like animals we see in verse 9 that he created the tree and It was pleasant to their sight and we begin to see this wonderful thing that only his image bearers experience And that is, we look at this tree, and it pleases us. And God is interested in our pleasure. He created us with senses to see, and hear, and taste, and smell, and feel. But He gave us eyes to see, but not just to see, but to connect with the beauty and the pleasure of this world, and His creation, and this God, and to worship the giver. of both the object of our pleasure and the capacity for pleasure. That as we experience those things, we would just be drawn to worship. Every time we're pleased by something in our existence, it would immediately turn our heart to just worship. taste buds that taste but are not not just to taste but to know something that tastes good and is pleasing and to worship the giver of both our taste buds and the object that we're tasting ears to hear but not just to hear but to connect us with beautiful sounds things that delight us like we're the only creatures that when we hear something we turn our attention to it we're drawn to it because it's pleasing and wonderful our nose to smell, but not just to smell off of instincts, but to connect us with pleasing smells and to worship the giver. Our bodies to feel, not just to feel off of instincts, but to connect us with the pleasure that we feel and draw us into worship. God created things in such a way that he knew we would connect to them and be pleased by them. He's not surprised. when Adam looked at the tree and was pleased by it. He had created it that way, and he had created Adam in a specific way that he had the capacity to recognize the beauty and something in him, this image-bearing quality, that would be drawn to it. It wouldn't be just, well, that's a tree for shade, or that's a tree to eat off of. No, it pleased him. And God created it that way. Part of our image-bearing quality is that we connect to God through pleasure. Well, we live in a sin-cursed, broken world. And this actually scares us to death. Pleasure is something we really struggle with. And all of us come from different backgrounds and stuff. Some of us come from an unbelieving background. We were just turned loose on our pleasures. The passions that were within us just drove us. Some of us come from backgrounds where things were locked down, like you shouldn't experience these things because you're going to be so close to the edge when you experience this pleasure that the next step is sin. And you're going to be captured by it, owned by it, and drawn away by it. So don't even get to the edge. And so we just hover up, we just hide from all the pleasure. And we miss out on the very character of God and all that he wants for us. We fear this idle factory in our hearts. And so we just turn it off and we just distance ourselves from it. And I think we have some legitimate reason to do that. There is some real concern there, right? That our pleasures would capture us. Well, we see in Genesis 3, when satan came to tempt eve we read so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and it was a delight to her eyes satan used that he said to her this is good it's pleasing why would god keep it from you why if he loved you would he keep this thing from you You can't trust this God. He's not good. He actually doesn't have your best interest at heart. You must take this thing. And it was pleasing. And it did look wonderful. And God didn't say, listen, I'm going to make this an ugly tree so you're not even drawn to it. No, it's going to be pleasing to the eye, delightful. But I want you to trust me in that. Exodus 20, we're really talking about these temptations, this lust, this covetousness. In Exodus 20, when we talked about the 10th commandment, you shall not covet. And that is this drawn to pleasure. We're being drawn to it. I shall not covet my neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. Well, that's the sin right there. We're taking that extra step. I see it as wonderful and delightful, but I'm going to pursue it. And it's an illegitimate thing for me to pursue, and now I'm in sin. So we have a temptation to think about this in a distorted way. I think God reveals his countenance to us as image bearers in this experience of pleasure. Well, what's a countenance? I mean, it might be a facial expression. Like, when I see you, do my face light up and I'm eager and I'm welcoming? Or am I kind of closed off? There's so much in our countenance and our physical expressions that reveal countenance. Well, God's countenance was one of delight for His creation. Eager, willing, accepting, wanting them to be in His presence, to be abiding to Him. And I think this reveals God's countenance to us as we see him creating these things. I was at the Park County Fair a couple years ago, and I was watching a young family. They had a child that was in a stroller, and they went over to the cotton candy booth. And they were getting some cotton candy. And I watched them because I could tell that they were eager, right? They were buying cotton candy. And I sensed that maybe this was the child's first experience with cotton candy. And so the parents were kind of giddy, and they were excited about buying the cotton candy. I watched them buy it. And you can just see them light up. They handed the cotton candy to their kids and to this child. And this child took it and was just couldn't believe it, had never tasted anything like this. And I said, that is the countenance of God for us. That's his countenance for us. He says, taste that. You're going to be amazed by it. Look at that. You're going to be drawn to it. It's going to be pleasing to you. And God's countenance for us is, oh, I want you to experience it. I want you to experience it. I want you to see it. Behold these things. It's all for you. And that's his countenance for us. He loves us. He wants us to experience these things, not that they are an end to themselves, but that as we experience this thing, our heart and our mind goes right through it, and we praise him. Those parents didn't want this child to delight in cotton candy, but they also wanted to be known as the ones who provided it for him. And God just wants that from us. Wood, as we experience these pleasures, our heart and mind go right through them to Him. And it would actually lead to worship. In the garden, that's what was happening, I think, because they saw the tree that was pleasing. They saw it. They felt this thing. And their heart went right through it and said, oh, God has created this for me. He wants me to delight in this. This is the very countenance of God. He wants us to be happy in this sense, to experience the wonders of his creation. And he's made so many things that for us to take in and experience, each one of them could capture us for sure. Each one of them. There's great danger. We could be captured by any one of them now. Our hearts are drawn to these things by our nature in a way that is not what it was in the garden. We have to be careful of those things, that they don't become an idol, they don't capture us or draw us in. But if we are worshipers, if we can experience that thing and worship God and be amazed that God has provided this legitimate thing, that I'm beholding this beauty from tasting this wonderful thing, we can worship. I think it brings great honor and glory to God. Image bearers are created for pleasure. All of our senses were wired for it. We travel as humans to see beautiful things. White, sandy beaches, clear water, beautiful sunsets, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, Yellowstone. We delight in just the smile we see from another person. There's something that connects us as the things we see. We have an appetite for it. We have an appetite for delectable and satisfying food, sweet and savory things. We taste strawberries and smoked salmon and smothered baked potatoes and ice cream and fresh salad, I guess. And we're drawn to them. Smoothies and coffee. But there's something that just delight. And we go back, right? We go back. We want more. And we experience it. When we hear people talking about restaurants, we went to this restaurant and the food was so amazing and they're telling everybody about it. Really, they're evangelizing, right? They're just beholding the good news of the thing I ate. And now we're sharing the information. We're proclaiming the good news. Why? Because it delighted us. We want them to experience the same delight. We are enthralled with sounds and music, and they please us. Melodies and harmonies and jazz music and symphonies and singing of a metal ark, the rippling sound of a mountain brook. A baby's laugh. There's just something in our image-baringness that just causes us to stop and to just listen with delight in it. And God wants us to. He wants us to. He wants us to also worship out of that. We are a singing creature. Universally, humans sing. We've kind of lost that in our culture, but there's something about just the expression of our voice and hearing other people sing. Why do we sing as a body? Because it's encouraging to one another. We are building each other up and we hear each other singing. We are creatures that have a sense of humor and we laugh. What a remarkable thing. God gave us the capacity to experience these things and to laugh and hear each other laugh and delighting in the things that our mind finds funny. We desire to smell pleasing scents, perfume, incense. The air after a summer rain, freshly mowed lawn, barbecue, grill, horses. That's my favorite. I just grew up with horses. There's something about the smell of a horse that they just, it's the most familiar, comforting smell to me, just to smell a horse. We enjoy pleasant feelings, soft material, warm showers, a human embrace, a hug that brings encouragement. These are all gifts. These are all gifts from God. This is his countenance on display. I want you to experience these things. I want you to know my love for you, my care for you as you experience the wonder of this life and all that it brings to us. God has created us to experience pleasure as we interact with his creation. We are also creatures that create beauty. There's something about us that wants to create beauty, excellence, art, architecture, music, food, experiences, Katie and Scotty's melodies and the way that they blend the songs together because it's so pleasing and it delights us. A Stacey Brown apple pie. It's this thing that she creates and she knows it's going to be so delightful and I'm so eager for it and I never get a piece because it's always The first thing to go. Brie and Joanna's art. It's engaging and brings a sense of awe. Hannah's flower garden. I don't know if you've ever seen Hannah's flowers in her flower garden. Why do humans plant flowers? It makes no sense. We can't eat them. They're not going to help us survive unless you sell them. But oh, it's an amazing thing. Mike Schutt has a machine that crafts amazing, intricate, beautiful woodwork. He made the plaque that we gave Pastor Brian last year. Humans create musical instruments. We play music. We decorate our walls. We paint things. We mow the grass, and we're in diagonals and checker patterns. We wash our tracks. And then you wash it, and then you wash it every day. because it's something pleasing about it. We go to car shows. What is it about a human that would want to go to a car show? Well, they're beautiful, and they're magnificent, and they're different, and they're creative, and they're... Brian Hannah had a huge car show in Kodi yesterday. Parades, yeah, all these things. We are creatures. This is part of our image-bearingness that is just coming out of us as we create beauty. And it doesn't have to be something that we would say is just beauty or art. I think we're desired for excellence. As we exercise this dominion mandate, and we perform our tasks and our labors with excellence, and we put things in particular order, and we're a great accountant, and we can reconcile the books and keep everything neat, there's something glorifying to God that we're putting on display, this excellence that God has put in me, and now it's flowing out of me in this way, or make great videos. or all the things that we do, building homes that are magnificent, three stories, and they're all intricately put together. Well, I guess we could say shooing horses. Somebody's got to do it. You can do it wrong, for sure. But there's something about this thing that God has created in us, this sense of beauty that just comes out of us. It creates excellence. and we put things in order as we exercise our dominion mandate. I think there's also a component of that as well. We should be people who value pleasure and celebrate it as from God. Throughout history, some of the most exquisite art, amazing music pieces, most spectacular architecture have come from Christians who are trying to put on display the glory of God and use this thing that's just innate to them to be able to do it and to put this thing on display. And we should not shy away from that. We should be drawn to it. So it is part of who we are as image bearers to experience the pleasure and to extend that to others and service to others as we create and to glorify God through all of it. It leads us to worship. Worship that creates We can worship, though, in a very sinful way. And now the struggle, as I said before, is that we create idols. When Paul writes in Romans 1, he says that what is the great exchange? What is this big sin that's exchanging the glory of the Creator for things that were created? And that's our tendency. That's how we're wired now, to worship creation, to want things from it, to have this insatiable appetite to draw from it, feed our own hearts and our own lives to turn things into idols quickly, to be captured by them, to have no sense of who we are as these handcrafted image bearers who were created to dwell in the garden with God and have this honor placed upon us and using all our capacities for His glory, living out this dominion mandate in holiness with a heart of worship. be satisfied in all of it. We turn it into selfish, wicked approaches. We worship the creature rather than the creator. And why is that such a grievous sin? Well, it is grievous when we understand where we came from, how it was created to be, what these things were intended to be, and our relationship to them. As we understand that, we can say, oh my word, now when I worship something in the creation, and I long for it, and I yearn for it, and I place my hope in being satisfied and content and happy and that, We can see, oh my word, that is so foreign to how we as image-bearers were created. We can say, oh, I can see why now. That is such a grievous sin before this God that only wants us to delight in Him, only wants us to know Him, only wants us to abide in Him, only wants us to see these things and be drawn to worship for Him. And He says, we're turning from Him. We just see these things and we turn from Him and we use them for our own good and our own glory. Oh, what wretchedness. But this is what Christ came to save us from. To give us a new heart. To turn our affections back to Him. To allow us to abide with Him as He takes our sin and the thing that separates us from Him upon Himself and pays for it all and washes us clean by His blood so that now we can abide with God We can not let these things capture us because we are beholding the glory of Christ and He continues to reveal Himself in the way that draws us to Him. Oh, this is the life we're called to. May as we behold God and understand His love for us and live in the reality of that love, may we experience the pleasures of this life without being captured by this. in a way that just draws us to worship Him and praise Him and live just overwhelming lives in the gratitude for His provision to us. Father, we are so thankful that You have sent Your Son to rescue us from the defilement and the wretchedness and how we have turned all of these wonderful things into the base wicked, gross things that really serve us only. Father, as we even just have a glance, as our attention and our heart turns from you, and we glance with affection at the things of this world in a way that we put our hope and our contentment in them, what a grievous sin. I'm so thankful, Father, that you have forgiven us for these things. We marvel that you have wanted that your countenance for us has not changed, but you still wanted us to know you and abide with you and be pleased with you, and so you reconciled us to yourself through the work of Christ. And so may we be a people that abides well with you, that grows in our love for you, and recognizes this high calling that we have as your people to walk in a manner worthy of the calling for which we've been called. We give you praise in Christ's name. Amen. You have been listening to a message from Trinity Bible Church in Powell, Wyoming. To receive more information about Trinity Bible Church or to support the ministry, go to tbcwyoming.com. That is tbcwyoming.com.