Mankind SS

What Mankind was without Christ:

Last week we studied being saved by God’s grace & not by works (or even faith + works). We did that by looking at a couple key passages on this from Eph 2 & Titus 3 great sections of God’s grace to save sinners. Today we’re going to look at Mankind but 1^st we gonna go back to Eph 2 & Titus 3 to remind us of God’s view of us before Christ (or without Christ).

Read Eph 2:1-3 – dead, followed the world, followed devil, obeyed our passions & desires,       children of wrath, like all Mankind.

Read Titus 3:3 – foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves of sin

The OT (Jer 17:9) says even our hearts are wicked, Romans 3:10 & Psalms 143:2 says no one is good, not even 1. In judging mankind God says in Judges 21:25 every man did that which was right in his own eyes….That’s not a complement. 

Now lets read about what Mankind is, in Christ

Read: BFM200 Mankind – Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God's creation. In the beginning mankind was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice. By his free choice mankind sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Through the temptation of Satan mankind transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence whereby his posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin. Therefore, as soon as they are capable of moral action, they become transgressors and are under condemnation. Only the grace of God can bring mankind into His holy fellowship and enable mankind to fulfill the creative purpose of God. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created mankind in His own image, and in that Christ died for mankind; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.

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Question: "What does it mean to be a man or woman of God?" -  Answer: “Man of God” is the description given to a man that follows God in every way, who obeys His commands with joy, who does not live for the things of this life but for the things of eternity, who willingly serves his God in giving freely of all his resources yet gladly suffers as a consequence of his faith. Perhaps Micah 6:8 sums up the man of God in one neat verse; it says: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Most of all, the man of God understands that when our Lord commanded him to "be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48); the man of God knows that his new nature is that of the righteousness of Christ which was exchanged for our sinful nature at the cross (2 Corinthians 5:17; Philippians 3:9). The final result is that he walks humbly with his God, knowing that he must rely solely upon Him to be able to live to the full and persevere to the end.

Perhaps the Christian today is lacking in these qualities, but this is what simple religion is all about—the simple religion that is yet sufficient to please God: helping those in distress and keeping oneself from being polluted by the world (James 1:23). We can have an awareness of all biblical doctrines, we can know all the theological terms, we may be able to translate the Bible from the original Greek and so on, but the principle of Micah 6:8 is the principle that the man of God must follow: to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.

The difference between human heroes and sacred characters lies just in this: the man is just a man, but behind the man of God, God Himself is ever standing greater than the man and overshadowing him by His infinite and glorious presence.

A. B. Simpson

At the fee of Jesus is the place for me. There, a humble learner would I choose to be. – PP Bliss