Hi everyone, my name is Neil Shenvi and it’s an honor to have been invited to preach to you. My text this morning is Gen. 1:26-28. Please turn with me there in your Bibles if you have them. If not, the text will be on the screen behind me. Let’s read together from God’s word.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

What is man? What does it mean to be a human being? That’s the question this text is answering and it’s an exceptionally important question. Why? Because your perception of what something is will determine how you value it and how you treat it. And since you yourself are a human being, what you think about human beings will determine your perception of your own identity. It will determine your answer to the question: who am I?

As an example, how many of you have ever watched Antiques Road Show? Raise your hands. If you’ve never heard of it, I looked it up, and it’s on its 30^th season on PBS. It was first broadcast in 1997. If you want to feel really old, that was during the last millennium.

The premise of the show is that people bring items to a convention center where they’re appraised by experts from auction houses, who tell them the origin of these objects and ultimately, their monetary value.

There are four kinds of stories that take place at an Antiques Road Show convention.

The first, most common story is the trash to trash story. Someone brings in an ugly misshapen clay ashtray and says, “I found this in the dumpster.” The expert casts his discerning, highly-trained eyes on it and says, “this is an ugly misshapen clay ashtray. Put it back in the dumpster where it belongs.” These stories don’t usually end up on the final show.

The second, less common story is the treasure to trash story. Someone brings in some old object that’s been passed down through the generations and says “this was my great-grandmother’s doll that she played with when she was a little girl.” And the expert says gently: “I’m sure this doll meant a lot to your great-grandmother and that it still means a lot to you. But it was mass produced and there are thousands of others just like it. It’s worthless, except for its sentimental value.”

The third story is the treasure to treasure story. Someone brings in an object that they know is valuable: a designer handbag or a rare painting and the expert says “this is a beautiful object. It is very rare.” They might assess its value at anything from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The owners walk away pleased.

But the fourth story is the least common and the most exciting, the trash to treasure story. I’ll give an actual, famous example. A man had an old, unusual rug that had been draped over the back of his armchair for years. He brought it to Antiques Road Show. You can find the video online. The appraiser examines it and says, and says –I quote– “It’s an extraordinary piece of art; it’s extremely rare, it’s the most important thing that’s come into the road show that I’ve seen.” He valued the rug at $350,000-$500,000.

Why do I give these examples? Because they’re perfect illustrations of how our perception of an object determines how we value it and how we treat it. If we think a tea set is ordinary and commonplace, we give it to our toddler to play with. We don’t worry if it gets chipped or broken and when it’s old, we throw it in the trash. But if we realize that the tea set is actually a rare collectible worth thousands of dollars, we treat it very gently and reverently. We might even put it in a display case so that people can admire it.

The same is true for human beings. How you value human beings and how you treat them will depend on what you think they are. Do you treat them as common objects that can be thrown into the trash when they’re no longer useful? Or do you recognize them as inherently valuable and filled with beauty? The answer will depend on what you think humans are.

For example, naturalists believe that nature is all that exists. There is no God, no Creator, no divine purpose, no hell below us, above us only sky. Therefore, human beings are merely “accidental collocations of atoms.” To put it bluntly, you are a meat computer. You were created by blind physical forces acting on particles. One day, you will die and rot and cease to exist.

To Marxism, man is merely the product of his environment. You have no fixed human nature. You are whatever your environment has shaped you to be. You are a cog in a vast capitalist machine designed to extract surplus value from your labor. You need to rise up and overthrow the bourgeoisie to usher in a communist utopia.

To New Age religion, you are a little god or goddess who has forgotten his or her divinity. You possess latent mystical powers and untapped cosmic consciousness. You need to realize your divine potential through esoteric religious practices, whether transcendental meditation, healing crystals, or psychedelic drugs.

To critical theorists, you are defined by your race, class, gender, sexuality, and a host of other identity markers. The world is divided into oppressor and oppressed groups locked in a struggle for dominance. Your lived experience of racism, sexism, heterosexism, cisgenderism, and ableism gives you special insight into truth. You need to liberate the oppressed by tearing down the oppressive systems and structures that surround you.

Obviously, this last perspective, the perspective of contemporary critical theory, is very popular in our culture and places race, gender, and sexuality at the core of who you are.

But what is the biblical narrative? According to the Bible, what is man? According to the Bible, what does it mean to be a human being? That is the primary question that Gen. 1:26-28 is addressing. This question is relevant to everyone.

Then, a secondary application of this text is: what are race, gender, and sexuality? How should we think about these categories as Christians? This question is especially relevant for us as 21^st century Americans.

Consequently, I’m going to basically preach two sermons this morning.

First, I’m going to explain what the text of Genesis 1:26-28 says on its own terms. What is it trying to tell us about what it means to be a human being?

Second, I’ll explain what Genesis 1 shows us about race, gender, and sexuality. And I’ll separate this theological application into three parts: “Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Beginning,” “Race, Gender, and Sexuality after the Fall,” and “Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Kingdom.” So first: how does the Bible answer the question: what is man? Second, how does the biblical understanding shape how we view race, gender, and sexuality in the beginning, after the fall, and in the kingdom?

So let’s start with the first sermon: what is man?

What Is Man?

Man Is a Creature

First, man is a creature. Read v. 26: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man….'” God is the subject in each of the sentences in this passage: God said…God created…God created… he created…God blessed…God said.” This is the refrain throughout the entire chapter. God is the creator. In the beginning, there was nothing. Then God created everything. Why does that matter?

It matters because it means that we are creatures, not the creator. We are the servants, he is the master. We are the clay, he is the potter.

How should this truth affect our posture towards God?

Imagine that I decide that I want a duck pond. My daughter loves ducks; I’m sure she’d be thrilled. But I want a duck pond in my living room. So I draw up some plans. I’m going to tear out the floor. I’m going to rearrange the drains. I’m going to install a skylight so the ducks can fly in.

But do you know what makes a big difference? Whether I own my house or whether I just rent it. If I own my house, I can basically do what I want. Duck pond in the living room? Sure. Hot tub in the kitchen? Weird, but ok. Batcave in the basement? Whatever Bruce Wayne, knock yourself out.

But if I’m just a renter, it’s a different story. I can’t do what I want anymore. I have to respect the wishes of the owner.

That’s all of us. We’re all just tenants. God is the landlord. We are not our own. We are living rent-free in God’s universe.

Why does that matter? It matters because it changes how you view your relationship to God and to his commands.

Let’s say my wife and I are invited to dinner at a famous person’s house. We come inside and the host says “please take your shoes off. We take our shoes off when we come inside.”

And I reply “I’ll certainly consider it. Please give me a list of reasons that you do not wear shoes indoors. Rank them in order of importance and I’ll look them over. When I’m done, I’ll probably have a few objections and if you can rebut them successfully, I will remove my shoes.”

My wife would pull me aside and say “honey, you’re embarrassing me. You promised you wouldn’t do this again.”

So what was the problem with my response? Aside from being weird. The problem is that it’s not my house. When you’re a guest in someone else’s house, you simply do what your host tells you to do. You don’t first demand that he justify his rules.

So let me ask you: Is that how you respond to God and to his commands? Is that how I respond to his commands? Do we just obey? Or do we demand that he justify himself first?

Of course, God’s rules are good and righteous. Of course he has reasons for everything he commands. But at the end of the day, we obey Him simply because He’s our Creator and we’re living in his universe.

Man Is a Divine Image Bearer

Second, also in verse 26, God says “let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” This is the doctrine of the imago Dei. Every person, male or female, young or old, rich or poor, healthy or sick, Black, White, Hispanic or Asian, bears God’s image.

Being made “in God’s image” doesn’t mean that God is like us physically, that he has two arms and two legs or that he gets hungry. Rather, it means that human beings are “like God” in the sense that we share in some of his attributes in a way that other creatures do not. Humans are rational. Humans are relational. Humans are creative. Humans can speak. Humans can make moral choices.

Think about how this doctrine should change your posture toward other people.

Look around: you are standing in the presence of people who bear the divine image. From the tiny baby, to the elderly Alzheimer’s patient in hospice, we bear God’s image and that image confers dignity and value on all of us.

Do you live that out? Do you treat everyone, even your enemies, even those who despise you, as if they bear God’s image? When you feel worthless, do you remind yourself that you bear the image of your perfect, holy, loving, powerful Creator?

Man Is a Vice-Regent

Third, man is God’s vice-regent. He acts as God’s representative over creation. God made man to rule. Verse 26: “And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Yes, we were made to serve. But we were also made to rule. God says “let them have dominion.” The pronouns in this passage are important. Here, God is referring to both man and woman, Adam and Eve: “They are to have dominion… over all the earth.”

Does that mean that we can do whatever we want to it? Can we pave paradise and put up a parking lot? No. Remember, we are just stewards of what ultimately belongs to God. Our job is not to destroy or replace nature, but to cultivate it. To care for it. As it says in chapter 2, Adam was commanded to “tend” the garden. His rule was not to be abusive; it was to be a blessing.

A garden is actually a perfect illustration of this relationship. A gardener doesn’t destroy nature. He doesn’t replace the grass with Astroturf. He doesn’t cut down all the trees and replace them with plastic Festivus poles. Rather, he plants, waters, prunes, and nurtures. He imitates His creator in bringing order out of chaos.

Tim Keller once observed that this is how every Christian should think about his job. You are not ultimately just “creating shareholder value.” You are bringing order out of chaos, whether you’re changing diapers, cleaning bathrooms, teaching students, repairing drains, or writing contracts.

Is that how you view your vocation? Do you go into the office on Monday thinking “I can’t wait until Friday”? Or do you say “I am glorifying God by having dominion over the earth, by bringing order out of chaos, and by serving my fellow man”?

Man Is Male and Female

Fourth, v. 27, God made man male and female. There’s so much here that we can only touch the surface.

We already noted that the command to have dominion over the earth is given to both the man and the woman. However, this is even more clear in verse 28, when God says to them (plural), “Be fruitful and multiply.” Think for a moment about that command. That’s not something Adam can do by himself. He can’t just perform binary fission and clone himself like a bacterium. Eve can’t do it by herself either. Only man and woman together can fulfill his command.

2nd-wave feminist Gloria Steinem popularized the saying “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” Very clever. Very unbiblical. According to the Bible men and women do need each other.

The text itself goes even farther: throughout Gen. 1, we see the divine benediction: “The Lord saw that it was good… The Lord saw that it was good… The Lord saw that it was very good.” But then in Gen. 2:18, we suddenly see God saying “It is not good for man to be alone.” Adam is in paradise, walking with God, but something was still “not good” because he could not find “a helper fit for him,” which can also be translated “a helper corresponding to him” or “a helper suitable for him.”

Now, when we hear “helper” in English, might think of how we talk to our toddler, as if we’re fixing the car and we say to our three-year-old “Oh, sure buddy, you can be my little ‘helper.’ You watch my tools while I replace the brake pads.” Or we might think “helper” means “inferior” or “subordinate.” But that would be incorrect. For example, the Hebrew word for “help” e’zer is also used of God himself multiple times in the OT. So it can’t mean “inferior” or “subordinate.”

The text reinforces this point: when Adam sees Eve for the first time, he doesn’t say “Great! An inferior!” Rather he says “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” He even names her “Woman” because he recognizes that she was “taken out of man.” This same word-play is present in the Hebrew. The Hebrew word for “man” is “ish” (eesh) and the woman is named “ish-ah” (ee-SHAH) because she shares his nature.

At the same time, there is an order to their relationship. Man is created first and woman is created from man. Woman is created to be man’s helper; man is not created to be woman’s helper. Paul makes exactly these points in 1 Cor. 11 and 1 Tim. 2. The rest of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, elaborates on these differences, highlighting both a distinction in roles and a fundamental equality of value.

But the major take-aways are that gender is a gift from God and that our gender differences are good, necessary, and beautiful.

Man Is Under God’s Blessing

Finally, man is under God’s blessing. V. 28: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'”

Think for a moment of the picture we’ve painted so far. Does this match your understanding of religion? Where are the rules? Where are the rituals? Where are the prohibitions? Where is the guilt? If we read on in chapter 2, we’ll see that God later gives them just one prohibition: don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But what is his very first command to Adam and Eve in Gen. 1? I don’t want to be too blunt here, but it is literally “go make babies.” Lots of babies. God says to Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth with your babies. Bring order out of chaos. Tame the wilderness. Tend the garden. Be kings and queens. Go with my blessing, knowing that the Creator of the whole universe is pleased with you and has pronounced you ‘very good.’”

Now we know that this is not the world we live in today. In Genesis 3 we will read about how Adam and Eve rebelled against God. Their rebellion brought sin and death into the world. They were driven out of Eden, their relationship with God was broken, their relationship with each other was broken, their relationship with nature was broken. But, even so, the original goodness of God’s creation remains. The earth is still filled with his blessings, his unmerited love and grace even towards those who reject Him.

Listen to this passage from C.S. Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters:
“[God is] a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a façade. Or only like the foam on the seashore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are ‘pleasures for evermore’…He has filled His world full of pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least—sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working.”

Is this how you view God? Is he the creator? Are you made in his image? Are you made to rule and reign under his authority? Do you embrace gender as one of his good gifts? Do you see his love and blessing in every joy you’ve ever experienced?

This is the God we meet in Gen. 1:26-28. This is the God who made you and calls you into fellowship with himself.

Race, Gender, and Sexuality In the Beginning

Ok, we’re done with sermon number 1. We’ve explained Gen. 1:26-28 on its own terms.

And can I make a fairly obvious observation? This passage subverts our modern obsession with race, gender, and sexuality precisely because it grounds our identity outside of these categories. Today, critical theory insists that your social location, your status as either oppressor or oppressed, is central to who you are. It is who you are. It determines how you should conceive of yourself, how you should think about others, what you experience, what you can know, and how you perceive the world.

Gen. 1 tells us: that’s not how to think about human beings. Human beings are creatures, we’re made in God’s image, and we’re created to have dominion over the earth under God’s blessing. Yes, we are male and female, but even there, we both share the same human nature. That is how the Bible answers the question: what is man?

That was sermon 1. Now it’s time for sermon 2.

While we don’t want to import modern concerns into the text, it is appropriate to ask: does the text tell us anything about race, gender, and sexuality? And here the answer is: yes. The text does have relevance to these topics and the Bible does have a great deal to say about them.

First, let’s take a look at race. How does race show up in Gen. 1-2? That’s the neat part; it doesn’t. Adam and Eve weren’t White or Black or Asian or Hispanic. They were just human. And all human beings are descended from them. In Athens, in Acts 17:26, Paul explicitly states that “[God] made from one man every nation of mankind.” So the sentiment that “there’s one race, the human race” is basically correct. It expresses the true claim that there is one human species and that we all equally bear the image of God.

The differentiation of humanity into different nations and peoples doesn’t occur until Gen. 11. At the Tower of Babel, humanity is united in their rebellion against God. In judgement, God scatters the peoples and confuses their languages. According to the Bible, this is the origin of the different ethnicities and nations. That doesn’t mean that the existence of different ethnicities or different nations is sinful; it only means that it’s not essential to being human.

After Gen. 11, the Bible does indeed recognize groups like families, clans, tribes, and nations. But it never categorizes people according to their skin color or puts people into massive buckets like “Black” or “White” or “Asian.” Racial labels like “Black” “White” and “Asian” were not invented until the 17^th century, when modern racial categories were wickedly used to justify chattel slavery.

A better category for us to use as Christians is “ethnicity,” which refers to a person’s ancestry, culture, and language and maps fairly well onto the biblical concept of “ethnos,” from which the English word “ethnicity” is derived. For example, the racial category of “White” therefore contains hundreds of distinct ethnicities like French, German, Spanish, Russian, and English, just as the racial category of “Asian” contains hundreds of distinct ethnicities including Japanese, Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese.

So it’s actually correct to say that race is a social construct. It’s not rooted in biology. There is not some kind of racial essence that all Asians share. The modern concept of race was constructed during the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

In contrast to race, both gender and sexuality are found “in the beginning” in the very passage we’re studying. They are both part of God’s good creation. In Gen. 1:27, God created them “male and female.” And notice what follows in verse 28: the command to “be fruitful and multiply.” The two categories of male and female come together in marriage to produce children. Therefore, unlike race, gender is not a social construct. It is God-ordained.

An important note: due to the influence of queer theory, our culture is increasingly distinguishing “sex” from “gender.” Supposedly, “sex” refers to biology while “gender” is a social category. For example, your sex is specified by your chromosomes and your anatomy whereas gender refers to what kinds of clothes you are expected to wear and what kinds of toys you are supposed to play with. Thus, queer theorists claim that someone’s biological sex can differ from their gender identity, the social category with which they identify.

But look closely at Gen. 2. Yes, God clearly creates two biological categories of male and female, who come together sexually in marriage to produce children. But this chapter also invokes social categories. Gen. 2:24 says “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Note the reference to just not biological categories like “man” and “woman”, but to social categories like “mother” and “father” and “husband” and “wife.” So it’s accurate to say that both sex and gender are God-ordained categories. Consequently, the social category of “gender” should be rooted in the biological category of sex. As a result, Christians should reject the idea that either sex or gender are fluid and can be changed at will.

Lastly: sexuality. The biblical sexual ethic follows directly from a biblical understanding of gender. Marriage is a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman and only within this marriage covenant is sex morally permissible.

Race, Gender, and Sexuality After the Fall

We’ve just finished discussing race, gender, and sexuality in the beginning but the next chapter in the biblical narrative is crucial because we no longer live in Eden. We now live in a ruined world. So how have race, gender, and sexuality been affected by the Fall?

First, as we’ve said, ethnicity didn’t even exist until after Babel. Interethnic strife, war, and oppression quickly followed. Likewise, gender and sexuality were broken by the Fall.

When Adam and Eve are punished in Gen. 3, the curse affected their relationship. God tells Eve: “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” The interpretation of this verse is contested, but I believe that –in context— it highlights the emergence of strife within marriage. The wife will now desire to dominate her husband and he will now rule harshly over her.

Sexuality is similarly broken. In Gen. 1-2 it was so simple: a husband and wife are married and their joy-filled sexual union produces children. But after Gen. 3, we see chaos and destruction. Adam’s great-great-great-great-grandson Lamech is the first polygamist and boasts about killing men in vengeance. The 7^th commandment prohibits adultery. Leviticus 18 is 29 verses long, and has to prohibit men from having sex with their mothers, with their sisters, with other men, and with animals. Why all these rules? Because the Israelites were doing all these things, along with all the nations around them.

The contrast is horrifying. In Gen. 1-2, we’re shown a beautiful, glorious world created by a beautiful, glorious Creator. We’re given an exalted view of humanity, our place in the cosmos, and our calling as God’s vice-regents.

And then it all falls apart. We have rebelled against God and have earned his curse rather than his blessing. We’ve been driven from Eden and now live in a land marred by thorns and thistles, bitterness and violence. Hostile nations slaughter each other by the millions. Ethnic hatred is rampant. Men and women are estranged from one another. Sexual abuse destroys the innocence of young women and men. Husbands and wives commit adultery, get divorced, abandon their children. Sex is predatory and empty.

We were created for heaven on earth and instead brought hell to earth.

Is there any hope?

Yes.

Race, Gender, and Sexuality In the Kingdom

The next chapter in the biblical narrative is redemption and it tells the story of God’s inbreaking kingdom. We were created as God’s vice-regents over his Kingdom. Through our sin, we rejected God’s rule and were exiled from his kingdom. But, in the fullness of time, God sent his son to be born King of the Jews. When we turn to Jesus, in repentance and faith, trusting in him as Savior and owning him as our Lord, we re-enter God’s kingdom as his sons and daughters. What we lost in Adam is restored in Christ.

So what do race, gender, and sexuality look in Christ kingdom? They look like Eden restored.

Take race or, more biblically, “ethnicity.” The nations were separated in Gen. 11 at the Tower of Babel. Their languages were confused and they were dispersed. Fast forward to the day of Pentecost, when Jesus’ disciples received the Holy Spirit. Acts 2 describes the scene:

“Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. ⁶And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. ⁷And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? ⁹Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, ¹¹both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”

Do you understand what you’re seeing? Babel is being reversed. Jews and Gentiles from different nations are gathered back to Jerusalem and –despite speaking different languages—are miraculously enabled to hear the gospel being proclaimed to them.

From the very day that the NT church is established, it is multiethnic. Jesus is reversing the curse of Babel. That doesn’t mean that ethnicity or nationality today are evil. Paul tells us explicitly that they are part of God’s providential plan. But it does mean that Christians now have an identity that transcends ethnicity and nationality. And, in eternity, Rev. 7:9 says that we will gather together with “all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues,” to worship the God who saved us.

What about gender?

In Gal. 3:27-28 we read “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slavenor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Here, Paul is not claiming that when you become a Christian, you cease to be male or female any more than you cease to be a Jew or a Gentile. What he is saying is that all people, rich or poor, young or old, male or female, Black or White or Hispanic or Asian, have an equal standing before God. We are all adopted into Christ’s body, the church.

Yes, there are still distinct roles for male and female within the family and with the church. But beneath that there is, as there always has been, a fundamental equality between the two genders. In the church, power is used to bless not to exploit. When his disciples were arguing over who was the greatest, Jesus told them “whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” Matt. 20:26-28. Wives are to submit to their husbands out of reverence for Christ and husbands are to love their wives like Christ loved the church. We are to imitate our master in setting aside our own demands for the good of others.

What about sexuality?

In 1 Cor. 6:9-11, Paul writes: “do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

Listen to that last line: “such were some of you.”

This is an absolutely crucial point, so let me close with it.

Yes, God’s law forbids homosexuality. It also forbids adultery and idolatry and theft and greed and drunkenness, and reviling, and swindling. By that standard, every single one of is a law breaker. God’s law cannot save, it can only condemn.

But Jesus does what the law cannot do: He forgives us. He declares us righteous in his sight. He renews us. He restores us. He puts into us a new heart and a new Spirit. He gives us the desire and the power to love our neighbor and even our enemy. He gives us the desire and the power to serve humbly and to give generously. He gives us the desire and the power to live out the biblical sexual ethic, to delight in the wife of our youth or to embrace chastity in singleness, to be pure not just outwardly but inwardly.

This is the gospel message and it’s for all of us:

Jesus didn’t come to earth to reward the good and righteous. He came to save sinners. He lived a perfect, sinless life, delighting in God’s design. Then he died a sinner’s death on the cross in our place, bearing the corruption and punishment we deserve. And then he rose from the dead, defeating sin and death once and for all. What was lost in Adam is restored in Christ. He is the King of God’s kingdom. If you repent and trust in him, he will welcome you back from your long exile.

This is the good news of the gospel: not that God blesses and accepts those who have kept his law, but that God blesses and accepts those who have broken it. Repent, then, and believe this good news: “that in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting men’s sins against them.”

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