Welcome to South! We're glad you joined us today! Below you will find some sermon notes and Bible passages, to help you follow along with Pastor Scott's message. We are in a series entitled Genesis: Back to the Beginning. We hope you will be encouraged by what is taught today.

We are significant-- not because of what we look like or what we can do, but because the triune Godhead wanted us to be a part of the creation of the heavens and the earth.

Note: As the Creator and Author of our lives, the role of Director of our lives is rightfully God’s, not ours or anyone else’s.

The image of God in which you and I have been created is the immaterial part of us, that not only sets us apart from the animal world and makes us fit to have the dominion that God intended for us to have over the earth (Genesis 1:28), but it also enables us to commune with our Creator, since we bear his likeness mentally, morally, and socially.

MENTALLY, we have been created as RATIONAL, volitional beings. In other words, we can reason and choose. This is a reflection of God’s intellect.

Illustration: So, you waking up and using your intellect to choose to come to church this morning, and choose to do so with the clothes on that you are currently wearing is actually a proclamation of the reality that you are made in God’s image.

Since we live in a post fallen world, our CONSCIENCES, or our moral compasses, is how we reflect the MORAL image of God.

Illustration: Whenever a person writes a law, chooses not to participate in evil, praises good behavior, or feels guilty for bad behavior, he or she is actually proclaiming the reality that they are made in God’s own image.

Finally, SOCIALLY, humanity was created for COMMUNITY, which is a reflection of God’s triune nature.

Illustration: So, every time someone marries, takes the time and effort to make a friend, joins a sports league, community choir, or book club, he or she is demonstrating the fact that we are made in the likeness of God.

God is clear that when we understand and believe the reality that people are made in his image, then we have no other choice but to believe that ALL human life has an inherently SACRED attribute that should be respected at ALL times.

=> There are two genders.

=> We don't get to choose our gender - God chose it.

Again, the choice to reject God’s direction for our life in this way, is not much different than rejecting God’s direction for our lives in other ways. Therefore, the solution is the same - repentance of our disobedient choice to reject God’s direction in our lives, and a commitment to submit to his direction moving forward.

Be fruitful and multiply/fill the earth. This was given to Adam and Eve - a married couple.