Christ Church

Anger, Patience and Redemption (Christ the Redeemer)
Christ Church on July 17, 2025
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The Image of the Triune God (King’s Cross)

Christ Church on

INTRODUCTION

In the worship of our congregations, we have the practice of reciting the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Definition of Chalcedon. There are various implications of this, but one of the central things it means is that we are Trinitarian Christians. But what is that exactly? Why does it matter? And for our purposes this morning, what difference does it make in your marriage?

THE TEXT

“And 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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:26–28).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

In the course of the creation week, God declared that He was going to make man. But He says it this way. First He says, “Let us.” The creation of man proceeds from an us, and it doing to result in an us. “Let us make man in our image,” He said. He will be made “after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). Man is made in the imago Dei, the image of God. The next thing has to do with the position and task of this created image. It is dominion over everything (v. 26). So then God did what He said He was going to do. He created man (Adam) in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them (v. 27). Having done this, God blessed them, and set them to their task of dominion (v. 28).

WE MUST TAKE CARE

Christians are monotheists. We believe in one God. We are not tri-theists. We do not believe in three gods. At the same time, we hold that this Godhead eternally lives in three distinct persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These are persons, and not mere aspects or modes of one unitarian god. Now we believe that this triune God can reveal truths about Himself in the created order (Rom. 1:20), but He does this without getting tangled up in the created order. As His image, we reflect Him. We do not contain Him.

“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father [Pater] of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family [patria] in heaven and earth is named” (Eph. 3:14–15).

THE WORD IMAGE AND YOUR SALVATION

So Scripture is very clear that we were created as image-bearers. This is the way we were in our innocence. But God had placed a probationary tree in the Garden, and had prohibited them from eating the fruit of it. This they did anyway, and our race fell into darkness. The image of God was shattered, but not entirely eradicated or erased. A little later in Genesis, God assigns severe penalties for murder because the victim, whoever he was, was made in the image of God (Gen. 9:6).

Nevertheless, we know that the image was marred and defaced in us because it was the assigned task of the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, to restore that image. Our growth in grace is the process of that great remodel project. The image of God is being restored in us. All the pieces are being put back together.

“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18).

“That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:22–24).

So in our sanctification, we are not being turned into angels. Neither are we being transformed into some other kind of creature. What is God doing then? He is making us into human beings. What material is He using for this audacious project? He is using wreckage of human beings. He is using the debris field of Adam’s great crash.

THE TRIUNE GOD HAS AN IMAGE

We have no right to try to turn the glory of God into an image of man. That is the sin described in Romans.

“And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things” (Rom. 1:23).

Rather, God is establishing a glorious likeness of the incorruptible God, and He is making this image out of corruptible man. We refuse to drag God down, but we dare not refuse when He determines to lift man up.

INESCAPABLE PORTRAYAL

Now what this all means is that you all, in your marriages, are a walking Nicene Creed. Not only so, but you are also a walking Definition of Chalcedon. A godly marriage is a robust and clear statement of the truth. A marriage that is struggling along is a mumbled and garbled recital of the truth. A rancid marriage is the creed of heretics. But every marriage is doing something. It is not possible for any marriage to be silent.

A man and a woman, standing alongside each other, are saying, “This is what the triune God is like.” That is either going to be an expression of the truth, or it is going to be a lie. A man who speaking to his wife is saying through his words that this is how Christ loves the church. And that is either true or it is false. A wife who responds to her husband is saying that this is how the church is sweetly submissive to the Lord. And again, this confession will either be accurate . . .or inaccurate.

But if your marriage is resting upon the Word, and if you are trusting in Christ alone for your salvation, and if you honestly confess your sins, to God and to one another, it is not only possible for your marriage to become a glory . . . it will be a glory.

“For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man” (1 Corinthians 11:7).

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Creationism vs. Theistic Evolution (Practical Christianity #2) (King’s Cross)

Christ Church on

INTRODUCTION

One of the most virulent viruses to infect modern Christianity is Darwinism. On the one hand, many academics have been cool-shamed into compromise, and on the other hand, even many young earth creationists are functional Darwinists. But you cannot build any house on the sand of human whims and hubris. Scientific theories come and go, but the Word of God stands forever.

The Text: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light…” (Gen. 1:1-2:3)

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The whole Bible opens with this record of God’s intentional, personal creation of all that exists from nothing by the power of His word. The Bible records this work of God as occurring over the course of six ordinary days, marked by “evening and morning” culminating in the seventh day of rest, and all “very good.” There is a clear structure to the work and text, the first three days “forming,” the second three days “filling.” God created light and separated day and night on the first day (Gen. 1:1-5). He separated the waters above and below and created the heaven or sky on the second day (Gen. 1:6-8). He gathered the waters into one place and caused dry ground to appear and the first plants on the third day (Gen. 1:9-13). He set the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament as signs and for keeping time and ruling the day and night (Gen. 1:14-18). On day five, God filled the sea with creatures and the sky with winged, flying creatures (Gen. 1:19-23). And God created every land animal on the sixth day and finally man and woman in His image to rule the world (Gen. 1:24-30). And God saw all that He had made and pronounced it very good, and rested on the seventh day and blessed it (Gen. 1:31-2:3).

EVIDENCE OF HISTORY

Some Christians try to avoid the straightforward meaning of this text by arguing that it is symbolic or poetic. But that merely betrays a very modern prejudice against poetry, as though if something is poetic, it’s meaning is unclear or not historical. But the Song at the Sea celebrates the crossing of the Red Sea (Ex. 15) and the Song of Deborah celebrates the defeat of Sisera (Jdg. 5): and those poems are historical. Genesis 1 is poetic, but it is also historical.

While some like to connive by pointing out that God is outside of time and time is different for God, the Bible repeatedly invites us to believe that God condescended to our ordinary time. A “day” ordinarily means 24 hours, an evening and a morning, and that is exactly what is presented in Genesis 1. The Sabbath command says that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, and that is why we work for six days and rest for one day (Ex. 20:11). Likewise, Jesus says that Adam and Eve were created at the “beginning of creation” (Mk. 10:6). To posit millions (or billions) of years of “creation” before Adam and Eve (or the first male and female creatures) contradicts Jesus.

THEISTIC EVOLUTION

While there several different ways Christians sometimes try to dodge Genesis 1, the most common and popular is called “theistic evolution,” or sometimes “evolutionary creation,” which generally accepts Darwin’s model of gradual evolution from pre-existent matter into simple organisms all the way down to the present complexity and intelligence of human beings, which really is one of the dumbest things moderns have come to believe.

And theistic evolutionists try to salvage the folly by insisting that God actively used and guided the evolutionary process.

The problem is that this means God used random mutations (deformities), survival of the fittest (strong destroying the weak), violence, suffering, and death for billions of years to create the present state of the world. But this does deadly damage to central doctrines of the Christian faith: First, the Bible says that creation groans for redemption, having been subject to corruption (Rom. 8:19-22). Creation was created “good” and pronounced “very good,” and it was Adam’s sin that subjected it to corruption. Theistic evolution essentially says that creation has always groaned, always been subject to corruption, and somehow that was “good.”

Second, the Bible teaches that death did not enter the world until Adam sinned: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12). This guts the Fall of any real significance (there had been dying for millennia?). What really changed?

And this brings us to the biggest problem: Third, theistic evolution undermines the point of Christ and His death. Why did Jesus have to die if a sinless man could be evolved from a humanoid ape? Couldn’t God have just re-evolved man for salvation? The Bible teaches that Christ is a “new Adam” come to restore what the first Adam lost (Rom. 5, 1 Cor. 15).

POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS 

The Declaration of Independence famously says: “… that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men…”

You cannot have life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness or the kind of limited governments that actually secure those rights, unless you have a Creator who has created men endowed unalienably with those rights. You cannot have that freedom apart from that Creator. And the more muddled you are about that Creator and His creation, the more muddled you will be about those rights and how civil governments secure them. When the doctrine of Creation is considered non-essential, soon your churches, your businesses, and your unalienable rights will also be considered non-essential.

CONCLUSIONS 

The personal, intentional creation of all things by the Word of God in six days is the foundational expression of God’s kindness, and grace. It is what theologians often call “common grace,” but it is not really common at all. It is exotic and mind-blowing love.

And that it is why it is not merely enough to reject Darwinism as a scientific theory, you must also reject it in every form. And what I mean is the kind of functional Darwinism that imagines that you can trick God’s blessing out of disobedience, that presumptuously lies about the goodness of God’s providence, and no matter what, “God will work it all out for good.”

Sometimes some of the most hardcore creationist families are some of the harshest and ugly in their words. God’s word spoke the universe into existence. God’s word upholds it all with supreme kindness. What kind of world are you making with your words?

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Directives for Women (CC Troy)

Lindsey Gardner on

SERMON TEXT: GENESIS 2:18-25

18 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

19 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: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20 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 an help meet for him.

21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

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