For our Scripture reading this morning, turn with me to Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4 as we read together verses 17-24. Chapter dealing with living as Christians, as part of the body of Christ. Read together this short section, verses 17-24 as we give our attention to the Word of God. So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of Him and were taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. And also, I ask that you turn with me in the back of the Psalter hymnal to page 10, where we find Lord's Day 3. Lord's Day 3, questions and answers 6, 7, and 8. And although this morning we are dealing only with question and answer 6, together we confess all three. 6, 7, and 8 of Lord's Day 3 found on page 10 in the back of the Psalter Hymn. So then question 6 asks us, Did God create man so wicked and perverse? No. God created man good and in His own image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that he might truly know God His Creator, love Him with all His heart, and live with Him in eternal happiness for His praise and glory. Then where does man's corrupt nature come from? From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in paradise. This fall has so poisoned our nature that we are born sinners, corrupt from conception on. But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil? Yes, unless we are born again by the Spirit of God. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, many of you are probably familiar with that newspaper cartoon called The Family Circus. And if you are, then, that you've seen those episodes from time to time that deal with mom or dad doing an investigation, trying to find out who was responsible, for example, for tracking mud all the way through the house. It tracks all over in every room, it seems. Or who was responsible for spilling that glass of milk on the table and leaving it there, and there's now a puddle on the floor because it's gone through the cracks and the dog is licking it up. Or also, just simply, who was responsible for making any kind of a mess and not cleaning it up. And every time the parents would ask who was responsible, the same answer seemed to echo throughout the house from all the children, not me, not me. Then of course there was that little character, the outline of which was meant to be an invisible character, with the words on the chest of that character, not me. You see, no one was ever willing to accept the responsibility. No one wanted to be blamed. Because we don't like to admit fault. Boys and girls, you know that. But so do those of us who are older. We don't like to be blamed. We don't like to admit it when we're wrong. But the problem is, we don't stop at simply not accepting the blame. But we often go that step farther and pass the blame on to someone else. It's not my fault. They did it. And maybe that's how it is or has been in some of your homes. And beloved, that's what's happening in Lord's Day 3. Question and answer 5 of Lord's Day 2 told us the truth of what we see when we are brought face to face with the mirror of God's law that instead of love, we are prone by nature to hate God and our neighbor. We are abnormal. And sin, as we said last week, is a break from the norm and therefore makes one abnormal. But it's also natural for us to want to know why we are by nature prone to hate instead of to love. Why is that the case? And whose fault is it? Already implying that it's not my fault. But you see, this is also a part of our abnormalness. That's a part of sin's deception. Remember what Paul said as we considered last week from Romans 6, that apart from the law, sin is dead. Man doesn't recognize it. Paul thought that he was alive and well, but when he was faced with the mirror of God's law, he began to see that he was dead in his sin. Already in the Garden of Eden, by not accepting the blame and instead blaming others as Adam and Eve did, they and we with them were loudly proclaiming, not me! My sinful condition is not my fault. Beloved, blaming others for the way we are is also evidence of our sin and misery. And a major part of knowing our sin and misery toward the goal of living and dying happily in Christian comfort, it includes, as the catechism does beautifully, being broken down by having all of our accusations and all of our pointed fingers pointed back at us. You've heard that when you point at someone else, there's three fingers pointing back at yourself. And as I mentioned in the early service, I think that if you look at the catechism from Lord's Day 3, beginning at question 6 on to roughly question 15, maybe not quite that far, it's been masterfully crafted. The writers of the catechism write the questions in such a way that it is the accused believer. Remember, the catechism is the believer's confession, but it is the accused believer who is speaking, who is asking the questions. And begins, as we see with question 6, begins in such a way that the accused believer in no way wants to accept the blame, doesn't even consider that it's his fault. And then by the time we get to around question 15, by that time, all of his arguments have been shot out of the water and he is brought to a realization that it is his fault. But this morning, we consider who's to blame for my abnormal hate. I preach to you this Word of God, the revealing truth of man's nature. It's divine creation, it's hereditary fall, and it's need for a miracle. Now let me quickly say that as I've indicated in the bulletin, this morning is part one. The Lord willing, we'll finish this sermon in two weeks with part two. This morning we consider question and answer six, and therefore only the first point. It's divine creation. But I know that many of you take notes, many of the boys and girls take notes and to help you along, I've got some sub-points that I would like to give to you that you may write down and I encourage parents, if your children take notes, help them to write them down in their outline. So it's divine creation and we can consider A. Point A, the sinful question about man's wickedness. The sinful question about man's wickedness. Point B, the foundation of man's original goodness. The foundation of man's original goodness. And then the third point C, the purpose of man's original goodness. The purpose of man's original goodness. Hopefully, that will help you if you take notes. Beloved, man's heart, soul, and mind have been darkened so that the truth of his condition is hid from him. Again, apart from the law, sin is dead. In other words, man is blind to it, ignorant to it. He doesn't see it. But the light of the Word of God shines bright and reveals the truth. And as we would expect, the catechism, true to its nature, depends completely upon Scripture for its instruction. Again, the teaching of our sin and misery begins with the fact that we are commanded to love God above all and our neighbor as ourself. But the truth is that I am prone by nature, as the catechism says, it is my natural tendency to hate them. That's my desire. That's the direction I naturally lean. But how can this be? Where did this come from? Well, the only reasonable explanation for natural man is, well, I must have been made this way. Yeah, that's it. I was made this way. Did God create man so wicked and perverse? That's the sinful question of man's wickedness. Did God do it? The very question, though, shows us how wicked and perverse man is, doesn't it? In question and answer 8, as we confess this morning, we confess that we are totally unable to do any good and that we are inclined toward all evil. Therefore, since we're not able to on the one hand, I can't even if I want to, and on the other hand, since we believe in election, those two things, I'm not able and I believe in election, it must be God's fault. It can't be my fault. But again, beloved, to ask this question, to try to pin the blame on God, fails to take into consideration who He is and what He has done. It does not take into consideration His self-revelation of sovereign holiness as He has given that to us in Scripture. This very thought accuses God of being something other than He truly is and that is nothing short of blasphemy. God is not the author and creator of sin. He hates sin which He has proven against His own Son on the cross. Well, what does God have to do with sin? He condemns it. And He punishes it eternally. In 1 John 1, verse 5, we read, God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. He could not create man so wicked and perverse because He would not. Instead, originally, man's nature enjoyed a divine creation. Now let me hasten to add, don't misunderstand the wording of this point. Sometimes we try to get creative as ministers with the naming of our points. I'm not saying that man was created to be divine. That he was created to be God. Not at all. What I'm saying here, as the catechism so beautifully says, is God created man as only the divine God could. Man's divine creation is the fact that he is created by God Himself. The Catechism emphasizes the fact that God did not create man so wicked and perverse. It simply says, no. Period. No. There's no way. There's absolutely no chance that God did this. God created man good and in His own image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that he might truly know God, His Creator, love Him with all His heart, and live with Him in eternal happiness for His praise and glory. Do you see what this means, congregation? It means that God created man consistent with God's own nature. Beloved, you won't know how crooked a line is until you draw a straight line right next to it. Boys and girls, if you took a pencil and a piece of paper and tried to draw a straight line, it might look pretty good. But then you take a ruler and draw another straight line, a perfectly straight line right next to it and inspect that, maybe with a magnifying lens, then you see that your line, which looks pretty straight when you first look at it, really goes all over the place. It's not straight at all. But the two must be side by side to really see the difference. And that's what the mirror of God's law shows us when we look into it and see our reflection compared to God's commands. I had heard a radio minister say this past week that the law of God has never made anyone a sinner. The law of God has not done that. The law of God reveals man's sin. It shows him what's already there. We would not know and we would not be distressed about the crookedness and the degeneration of our life if God, by His grace, had not drawn the straight line of the God-approved man and revealed it to us through His Word. The God-approved man is one created good and in God's own image that is in true righteousness and holiness so that he might truly know God his Creator, love Him with all his heart, and live with Him in eternal happiness for His praise and glory. And therefore, the God-approved man is one who loves God above all and His neighbor as Himself. Beloved, this is the language of Scripture. God testifies in His Word that the result of His creation of man includes a nature with these attributes, true righteousness and holiness. The very opposite of what sinful man wants to accuse God of doing. We must understand what Adam was like when God created him because only when we do by the illumination of the Holy Spirit will we also then understand how out of place and deadly it is to accuse God of creating man so wicked and perverse. We read already in the first chapter of Genesis that man was the crown of God's work of creation. During those days of creation, as Genesis tells us, as God looked at what He had made, He saw that it was good. Every day of creation that went by saw only good. And when God had finished after He created man and gave Him His mandate to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it, to have dominion over every living thing, then, as Scripture says, God saw everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. Of course, to us, to describe something as good doesn't always mean that much, does it? Because we normally speak in degrees. We use what we call superlatives. This may be good, that is better, if something else may be best. Boys and girls do that when they're with their friends, and they brag about their abilities, or they brag about their dad, hopefully, Or even how they did on a test. Well, I did good. Well, I did better. Well, I did the best. You can't compete with me. But in the language of God, to describe something as good is the best there is. The highest praise that Scripture gives to God is that He is good. Psalm 135, verse 3 says, Praise the Lord. Why? For the Lord is good. What does it mean that God created man good? Well, of course, for something to be good, it must do what it was made to do. It must fulfill its purpose. Therefore, something is either good or it's not good. And if it's not good, then it's bad. A clock is good only if it keeps accurate time. And a camera is good only if it takes good pictures. God created man as well as all of creation good. In other words, man answered to God's purpose. There were no defects in man. He wasn't just a pile of damaged goods when he was finished. He was created without any corruption, without any sin. He could not be created any better than he was because he was perfect. Man's divine creation meant that he was able to perform the wonderful task that God gave, assigned to him, and he was able to accomplish the glorious purpose of his life, which we hope to talk about in a few minutes. And what then was the foundation of man's original goodness? He was created in the image of His divine Creator. Genesis 1 verse 26 says, Then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. But notice the difference in God's creation of man from every other living thing. Genesis 1 verses 24 and 25 tells us, Then God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind. Cattle and creeping thing and beasts of the earth, each according to its kind. And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God made different kinds or families of living creatures. But He created man. He created Adam differently. God created man in His own image. The blueprint, therefore, for Adam was God Himself. Man was created in the image of God to look like God, to reflect God. And that's what an image does. It reflects the original. And Paul verifies in Ephesians 4.24 that God's people were made to be like God. Paul says, he makes it clear there, that the new self, after dying to sin, is a recreation of God's original work of making man. Now often we say that a son is the spitting image of his father because the father's features are seen in the son. An example I used in the first service is that when I had the opportunity to be at classes this past week, I also had the opportunity to go see an uncle and aunt of mine whom I haven't seen for quite a while. My aunt just kept looking at me, just staring at me and said, my, you look like your dad. You look like your dad. And of course, people have looked at my son Nicholas and said, he looks like me, especially our younger pictures. Some have said that Joseph looks like me, but I'm not sure if that's the looks or the personality. But be that as it may, we look around this room, and children look like their parents. The father's traits and characteristics are passed on to the son. In the same way, man was created to show forth the traits of God. So then, congregation, for example, what does this say about evolution? Well, it says it's a bold-faced lie. Scripture is clear that man did not begin at a low level and then climb up to the place where he is today and only to keep on climbing until one day it's all done. Again, there were no created defects in man. Ecclesiastes 7, verse 29 says, Truly, this only I have found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. And evolution is one such evil scheme. We could say that the truth is devolution, or as some have said, devolution. You see, man started at the top. And from that height, he fell to the lowest depths of sin and depravity. But, beloved, he started at the top. As we said a moment ago, he was the crown of God's creative work. Being made in the image of God means that man was distinguished from the rest of creation and especially from living beings. Man is different from the animals in that he's able to think and reason and he has an intellect, a conscience, a will, a soul that animals do not have. And we know that man still possesses these after the fall, however terribly infected and deformed they might be. But before the fall of Adam and Eve, man's nature was such that with his ability to think and reason and with his intellect, conscience, and soul, he stood in a right relationship with God. And the image of God that man was created with was true righteousness and holiness. Again, Paul supports this in Ephesians 4.24. He says, "...and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." And with true righteousness and holiness came, as the catechism rightly says, true knowledge of God, His Creator, as Paul makes clear in Colossians 3, verse 10, put on the new man who was renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created Him. True righteousness, holiness, and knowledge cannot be separated. You cannot have one without the other. You can only truly know God when you possess true righteousness and holiness. And you can only demonstrate true righteousness and holiness when you truly know God. God created man with the riches of God Himself. Man knew God directly and perfectly from both God's Word spoken directly to him and God's revelation of Himself in His creation. There were no distortions and man did not suppress that truth in unrighteousness. The whole nature of man was truly righteous in that he was completely and wholly in harmony with the will of God. And that harmony included the fact that not only was the first man capable of doing God's will, but originally he actually obeyed God's will and it was a delight for him to do so. Man was also created with true righteousness, true holiness, which means that he was fully consecrated or set apart to God in love with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength. Man's whole soul longed for the living God and him alone. He didn't wish for anything else but God. The delight of Adam's soul was that he enjoyed the favor and fellowship of God. Beloved, man was created good in true holiness to will or desire that which is good and in true righteousness to do that which is good. And the reason or the purpose of this, as the Catechism says, is to love Him, to love God with all His heart, and to live with Him in eternal happiness for His praise and glory. God created man good and in His own image fully capable of serving His Creator and to be God's representative in the world. Do you see the Christian's threefold office in view already at creation? Man was called as a prophet to know and glorify God. He was called as a priest to consecrate himself to God in holiness and love. And he was called to be a servant king to righteously rule over the works of God's hands and therefore to live with God in eternal happiness for His praise and glory. The essence of this knowledge of, love of, and life with God is to glorify and praise Him. That's the purpose of man's original goodness. As someone once rightly said, it takes an eternity to praise this God as He should be praised. Beloved, why did God create Adam and Eve and all of mankind, including you and me? Why did He do that? Not for ourselves, not for our own interests, but for Himself. To glorify and praise Him and to show forth the glory of His grace. And since this was God's purpose, then it should be no surprise to us that to praise and to seek His honor is the only thing that gives sense and meaning and purpose to life. Our purpose in life is God and God alone. And that means that all the details of our lives, our relationships, our work, everything, must serve to glorify and praise Him. And this also means that I am not my ultimate purpose in life. To prosper is not my purpose. To make a good living is not my purpose. To make a name for myself is not my purpose. To have the highest GPA in my class is not my purpose. To be the best one on the athletic team is not my purpose. None of those things is to be my primary goal. Your life can be picture perfect, humanly speaking. with nothing that can be held against you. But if God was not in it, if He was not your true focus, if He was not your driving force and your striving force, then you have missed the mark and your purpose meant nothing. And eternally speaking, it was a failure. Congregation, Psalm 150 calls God's people to praise 13 times as we heard in our call to worship. Maybe you picked that up. Thirteen times it calls God's people to praise. And as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10.31, Therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Even the smallest details of our lives are to be directed toward God. And why is this man's purpose? Because God divinely created man for this purpose and from the very beginning set him on the proper course to fulfill that purpose. But God's purpose for man has been affected by sin. Question and answer 6 makes that clear. Just in the way it is asked. It makes it clear that man is so wicked and perverse. It's not if. The fact is, now we're trying to find out whose fault it is. Yet we need to save our discussion of the depth of man's wickedness and perverseness for the Lord willing in a couple of weeks, as then we hope to conclude who is to blame. Yet, we this morning must confess our sin and misery and I hope and pray and trust that as we have talked about God's perfect work of man's creation, of creating man, that the Holy Spirit has applied this to each and every one of our hearts and that each one of us is convicted of our sin and misery but not by God's work of creation. To accuse God is to deny who He is and to deny who He is and what He has done is an eternal death sentence. You see, beloved, God's grace is seen in that He not only tells us what the God-approved man is to be, but in His grace, He made man already God-approved. That's the straight line. But man has become infected and completely defective to seek and carry out His purpose of glorifying and praising God. And that is the crooked line. we must confess that man's purpose has become himself. Man is the center of his own selfish attention. And as we hope to see in a couple of weeks, pride leading to disobedience is our struggle, which is what we inherited from our first parents. But our comfort, beloved, is that the same God who created man good and in His own image also recreates His people by the power of His Holy Spirit. For the sake of Christ's satisfaction. For the sake of Christ who died on the cross. For our sins that we might live. He reclaims ruined sinners. And calls His people to seek His purpose. A purpose which has never changed. As Scripture says, those He justifies, He also sanctifies. Renewed in true righteousness, holiness, and knowledge. Congregation, how much of a place does God really have in your life? Does seeking your own honor and purpose take more of your effort and time than the praising and glorifying of God? Unfortunately, we know the sad answer, don't we? The revealing truth is that of ourselves, we are wicked and perverse. But again, our confidence as believers is in Jesus Christ. He fulfilled His purpose completely and perfectly. He went all the way to the cross for the glory and praise of God and He is and remains a straight line, that straight line for His people. Only in Jesus Christ does God see His people, those who believe on Him by grace through faith, Only in Christ does God see them as God-approved. And indeed, that's how God looks at His adopted children. In order to have the favor of and true fellowship with God, one must be divinely created. To glorify God and enjoy Him forever, one must be divinely recreated. God's original creative work of man is a true comfort and it is an eternal comfort because His perfect work in the beginning congregation guarantees His perfect work for eternity. If you blame God for your sin and misery, then you have no place to turn for deliverance because there is only deliverance to be found from the divine Creator. But those who are made new by the grace of God through that regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, they will live with Him in eternal happiness for His praise and glory. And that's a guarantee. Beloved, what is your purpose in life? Amen. Shall we pray? Father, we confess that sometimes it's hard to hear the truth of ourselves. We don't like this very much. It hurts. But yet, Father, we praise you for this necessary knowledge because without it, there is no salvation. Without knowing this, Father, we would never desire salvation. We would never know where to look for salvation. But we praise You, O Lord, that there is salvation complete, full, and free, majestic in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And we pray that through Your Holy Spirit you would continue that work of sanctification until your people are complete renewed fully in true righteousness holiness and knowledge Father we pray for your blessing upon this word which has been preached we pray that you would apply it powerfully to our hearts and lives and we will give you all the praise and the glory in Jesus name we pray Amen Thank you.