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Florence SDA Church

Dwayne Lemon

Our Need for a Change of Mind

Our Father in heaven, we are very grateful for the privilege to come together as a family to study your word.

We thank you, Lord, for the way that you constantly draw us closer and still closer to your heart.

We praise you even for our trials, for If they are rightly received, even they work together for our good.

And so Lord, even now, we bow before you asking for the forgiveness of our sins and also for the presence of your spirit to manifest himself as our teacher, but not only our teacher, but the 1 who will guide us into the teachings and empower us to live them.

And we're grateful that you have not only heard this prayer, but we trust because it's according to your will that you have answered it.

And so therefore we say thank you in advance for these precious blessings in Jesus name amen I want to invite all of us to turn our Bibles to the book of Genesis chapter 1 right there at the very beginning we're going to look at Genesis chapter 1.

And we're going to look at a very foundational text of scripture, God's plan.

There was a thought process that God had in his mind of what he wanted.

And the Bible is very clear about it in Genesis chapter 1.

And if you're there, just let me know by saying amen.

The Bible says in Genesis chapter 1 looking at verse 26 it says, and God said, let us make man in what?

Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

As man is made in the image and likeness of God, he by God is empowered to have dominion over everything on the earth.

When man is not reflecting the image and likeness of God, he cannot have dominion over the earth.

And that's why today, Adam and Eve, back in the days, they could go to an animal and the animal was subject to them.

Today, when we go in the presence of a grizzly bear, we are subject to that bear.

We don't have the dominion anymore that Adam and Eve once had.

But as God restores his image and likeness in us, we will once again have dominion.

When I look at the word likeness, it's a very important word.

The word likeness in the Hebrew, it means resemblance.

So the first thing is, is that you know Adam and Eve had certain physiological things about them that referenced God.

There was a resemblance when God made mankind in the beginning of time.

I also want you to see that that word likeness also deals with the mannerisms of God.

When God made man, man was designed to not only reflect God as it relates to behaviors, But when God made man, he was to reflect God's thoughts.

He was supposed to have the very mind of God.

When God made man, man was to reflect the very mind, character, and personality of God himself.

That was God's design in the beginning of time.

And there's a nice little way that if you study the Bible carefully you can actually see a reflection of this.

How God's thoughts and man's thoughts were absolutely united 1 with another and I'm going to give you an example of this go to the book of Genesis now chapter 2 you can just pretty much turn a page over or maybe you don't even have to do that depending on how big your Bible is You go to Genesis chapter 2 and I want you to see how literally we can see this truth that when God made man in his likeness that it was not just resemblance by way of physiology but it was also a reflection of the very mind of God, the thoughts of God.

In Genesis chapter 2, God told Adam to do something.

Let's watch the counsel of God very clearly, and then we're gonna consider some other texts so we can kind of get an understanding.

In Genesis chapter 2, the Bible says starting at verse 19, man is made in God's image and likeness.

Man is in his sinless state, and he has a reflection, not only of the physiological structure of God, but the very mind and thoughts of God.

So 1 day God does something, and I like how the Bible puts it in verse 19.

It says, and out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.

God says, I'm gonna bring these animals to Adam.

You see, Adam was made without any flaws.

He was made flawless, but he still had to develop character.

So God allows Adam to go through this experience.

And he says, I'm going to make all these animals.

And what I want to do, Adam, is I'm going to watch you carefully.

It was a beautiful little way of a, you know, test.

I'm going to watch Adam and see what he calls them.

So here it is that it says and whatsoever Adam called every living creature that was the name thereof and Adam gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field but for Adam there was not found and help meet for him." So you can imagine that Adam is watching all these things God created.

It has a very full-sized body, but it has an extremely long neck and then kind of this little head on top of it and it has all of these brown and white patches on it.

So Adam's looking at that animal and eventually Adam says you know what, I think I'm going to call that animal what?

What do you think Adam called that animal?

Adam goes ahead and he looks at this bird.

Bird is small, got a pretty much wide, round, almost a little squarish looking head.

And the amazing thing about this bird is that the bird could be looking at you this way and the bird can just, and turn his head all the way the other way and look and see exactly what's behind him.

Adam says, I think I'm gonna call that bird an owl.

God, Adam was just looking at all of these animals and he's just looking at them and he's naming them 1 by 1, whether it be the fowls of the air, whether it be the beasts of the field.

Now, I believe that when God was putting this before Adam, God was seeing something else outside of merely the names that he was calling them.

I want you now to turn your Bibles with me to the book of Psalms.

And I want you to go to Psalms the 40th division and look at verses 25 and 26 with me.

Psalms we're going to the 40th division and I want you to see what it says as we consider verses 25 and 26.

God wanted to see, let's see what Adam calls these animals.

So here it is in Psalms, the 40th division.

Let me see here, no, that can't be right.

So let's go ahead, I'm so sorry, Isaiah 40.

Isaiah, the 40th chapter in Isaiah the 40th chapter 25 and 26 Isaiah the 40th chapter and now we're gonna look at verses 25 and 26 Isaiah was going through now 25 and 26 is our focus, but you know if you were to go through the full of Isaiah 40, Isaiah is challenging the people of God because you know there's a lot of things that were created.

There was man, there was stars, there were animals, and you see all of that listed from Isaiah 40, and you can pretty much start right about at verse 21, and you take it down.

You can see there that God is referring to all sorts of things.

And as God refers to all of them, I want you to notice something that God brings out in a powerful principle in verses 25 and 26.

In Isaiah 40, 25, if you're there say amen.

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Our Need for a Change of Mind

Transcript

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