Breathed Into by God: Why Poor Self-Esteem Is Not Humility

Sermon outline

To enjoy God's blessing you must first see your true value: you were formed by God's own hand, filled with His breath, made in His image to reign, and remade in Christ as His workmanship.

1. Most Christians do not realise their value in God's eyes

   We have known and believed the love God has for us, but we must also see ourselves as God sees us. Poor self-esteem is a common religious problem that we confuse with humility, and because we do not realise how valuable we are, we make our most tragic mistakes.

   Illustration: We are like a legal heir to a vast fortune who values himself far below his inheritance, and so makes a crooked financial deal instead of trusting God to provide.

   “Our basic problem as human beings is that we do not realize how valuable we are.”

   • 1 John 4:16

2. The miracle of Adam's creation

   All creation came by the spoken Word, the One later revealed as Jesus Christ, but Adam was made differently: God formed him from the dust and breathed into him. The Hebrew word for 'breathed' sounds like what it describes, a small explosion followed by a forceful release of breath, so God breathed Himself into the clay and man became spirit, soul and body.

   Illustration: He paints the scene of the Lord kneeling, moulding clay mixed with water into the most perfect sculpture ever made, then putting His lips to the lips of clay and breathing life into every organ.

   “No other being has ever been created this way.”

   • John 1:3
   • Hebrews 11:3
   • Genesis 2:7

3. What the fall cost Adam

   Tricked by Satan, Adam and Eve disobeyed, and every part of Adam's triune nature was affected. His spirit was cut off from God and died that day, his soul became a rebel at war with his Creator, and his body became subject to sickness, ageing and death, though it lived more than 900 years.

   “It was Adam's spirit that died instantly.”

   • Genesis 2:17
   • Genesis 5:5

4. God's other glorious beings

   God also created seraphim with six wings, cherubim who guard sacred things, archangels like Michael, the angels around the throne and the four living creatures. All of them are engaged in worship and ministry, and the angels are ministering spirits sent to help those who inherit salvation.

   “So all of these created beings are all engaged in ministry.”

   • Isaiah 6:2
   • Ezekiel 10:1
   • Jude 1:9
   • Revelation 7:11-12
   • Revelation 4:4-9
   • Hebrews 1:14

5. Lucifer fell through pride, so God chose dust

   Lucifer, the bright and shining one, was full of wisdom and perfect in beauty, the anointed cherub covered with precious stones, until iniquity was found in him through pride and he was cast out. So God chose to make man from something so humble and insignificant that it could never become proud: dust, mingled with water and moulded by His hand.

   “Let's take something so humble, so insignificant, that it can never become proud.”

   • Ezekiel 28:12-16

6. Made in His image to reign

   The triune God said 'Let us make man in our image', and in Hebrew 'image' carries the idea of a photograph, an outward and inner likeness. Man was made to be God's vice-regent, reigning on His behalf with authority over the earth, and he will never cease to exist: he will live either in God's presence or banished from it.

   “Man was made to reign on behalf of God.”

   • Genesis 1:26-27

7. You are God's poem

   The Greek word for workmanship is poiema, God's poem, a design produced by a master artisan. Before conversion our lives had no rhyme or reason, but conversion brought balance, symmetry and order. Adam and Eve were created for fellowship with God and Adam was given the job of keeping the garden; he failed, and next week the series moves on from this foundation.

   “So we are in fact God's poem, His work of art.”

   • Ephesians 2:10
   • Romans 1:20
   • Genesis 2:15
   • Genesis 2:20-23