Enough

Sermon preached on July 14, 2024

Oh Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous - how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! Psalm 139:1, 13-17

I chose to write about being enough because many of us, young and old, struggle to believe we are good enough. I know I struggle with it at times. Looking at others and thinking I don’t measure up is so easy.

We look at celebrities and think they must be pretty confident in themselves. They have money, beauty, fame, riches, and everything that makes for a perfect life. And yet Hollywood is flourishing with divorce, addiction, abuse, and mental illness. We can’t count on both hands and feet the number of celebrities who have imploded.

Now, we have social media to show us that we don’t even measure up with ordinary, average people. Most people only show us the great things or times in their lives. Although I have a few friends who are willing to put their struggles and failings on Facebook, I have been a pastor long enough and have been involved in the inner workings of enough people to know that nobody’s life or family is perfect.

Celebrities are not the only ones who feel insufficient; many struggle with self-confidence. Many of these breakdowns occur because we forget who we are in Christ and try to be enough on our own.

Genesis 1

We were purposely created in God's image. We are not an accidental collision of matter, not an evolutionary final product after years of adapting to our environment. We have a unique relationship with God that animals do not have. Though we were created in God's image, we were not created as puppets. God wanted us to choose to have a relationship with him. As Warren Wiersbe writes in his book Be Basic, “He not only gave us personality – minds to think with, emotions to feel with, and wills for making decisions – but he also gave us an inner spiritual nature that enables us to know him and worship him.”  Pg. 30 After he created us, he declared that all he created was very good—not just good, but very good. He was pleased with the creation of man and woman.

In Genesis 1, the author uses the word bara for the word create. Bara means to create out of nothing. J. Vernon McGee, in his series Thru the Bible, writes what it means to be created in the image of God. “I think that it refers to the fact that man is a personality, and as a personality he is self-conscious, and he is one who makes his own decisions. He is a free moral agent. Apparently, that is the thing which is unique about mankind.” Pg. 16

Chapter two of Genesis tells us how God created man, “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.”(2:7) God breathed his life, the air in our lungs is directly from God. Wiersbe writes, “The creation of the first man is seen as a very special occasion; there’s a ‘consultation’ prior to the event. “Let us make man in our image” sounds like the conclusion of a divine deliberation among the persons of the Godhead.” Pg. 29

Further, Wiersbe writes, “The verb form suggests the potter making a work of art in his skilled hands. The human body is indeed a work of art, an amazingly complex organism that only the wisdom of God could design and the power of God create.” Pg. 29

Psalm 139:13-16

Adam and Eve were not the only ones purposely created by God. David tells us in Psalm 139, “You made all the delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous – how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion and woven together in the dark of the womb.”(13-15)

God didn’t leave our creation to chance; our DNA is unique. We share our DNA with our family, but everyone among the billions of people worldwide, and all who came before and those who will come after, is one-of-a-kind.

Identical twins are not even identical in every way. The term monozygotic twin is more accurate. Scientists recently read the DNA of 381 identical twin pairs, and they found that, on average, the identical twin pairs differed by 5.2 mutations. Thirty-nine of the pairs differed by more than 100 mutations. Monozygotic twins do not have identical fingerprints either.

God knew everything about our lives from beginning to the end, “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”(139:16)

So, God created us to accomplish our life’s work perfectly. God knew I would not need to pursue a career in music, so there was no need to give me a voice that could carry a tune. God put everything in our DNA to serve our purpose in life. Do you ever consider the wisdom and knowledge to be able to create DNA out of nothing? This demonstrates God’s omniscience.

He still thinks about us.

In verse 17, David wonders about God’s continued involvement in our lives. “How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand. And when I wake up, you are still with me! (139:17-18)

In Psalm 8, David asks God a question I have often asked him, “...what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care about them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.” Ps. 8:4-5

I think of all the times I have failed to live up to God’s morals, disobeyed him, and let my anger and sins separate me from him, and yet he continues to be there for me. He has never left me to figure out life on my own! I found that unconditional love challenging to fathom until I had children. Nothing my children or grandchildren could do would stop me from loving them and being there for them.

Compassionate Conviction

I recently read an article by Kimberly Reisman in Good News Magazine concerning compassionate conviction. She writes that we have become a society that has forgotten the “love thy neighbor” principle and replaced it with “Get off my lawn.”

She quotes Katherine Boyle, who wrote: “...that these diminishing values are creating a void.” One thing she believes is moving to fill that void is a relentless focus on the self that tells us, “You are enough.”

Reisman continues by reminding her readers, “You are enough. You are so enough it is unbelievable how enough you are.” From a Christian perspective, we are enough because God has always loved us unconditionally. God loves us right where we are; we don’t have to change ourselves to receive God’s love.

Because of the decline of Christianity in America and the acceptance of the values of our society by Christians and non-Christians alike, our young people have begun to believe that there is no greater truth than their truth. All we need is a little self-love and self-care, and we’ll be fine.

The truth is we are not okay. As Reisman points out, “Our lives are marked by anxiety and depression, broken relationships, and damaged hearts. And she points out that “we are currently eleven years into the largest epidemic of adolescent mental illness ever recorded. One in ten adolescents say they have attempted to kill themselves.  (pg. 28)

All this “safe space” the “experts” claim our young people need has not strengthened them because God did not make us to live a life of safety. I often think of C. S. Lewis’s statement in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that Aslan (the Christ character) is not safe but is good. Being safe and without conflict does not strengthen our character.

Paul writes to the Romans, “We can rejoice when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope in salvation.” (5:3-4) And I would add our hope in salvation secures our knowledge that through Christ, we are enough.

Our response to this knowledge

The world says we must focus on ourselves first and love ourselves more than anyone else. It concludes that this is what will make us happy. But the more self-centered we become, the less happy we are. Depression in teens began to increase around 2012. Reisman mentions that Facebook bought Instagram the same year, and the word “selfie” entered the popular lexicon. Coincidence? I think not.

So, if focusing on ourselves is not working, how do we respond to the knowledge that we are enough? In Philippians, Paul says, “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your interests, but take an interest in others, too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.” (2:3-6)

God says we must have the attitude of Christ; we were, after all, created in his image. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Conclusion

Could you imagine a world where every Christian practiced this principle? When we look outward instead of inward and love others as God loves us, joy permeates our souls and lives, and we know we are enough. Not because we are doing good things for others but because that is what we were created to be.

Don’t depend on the world, friends, family, or those who don’t like you to define who you are. God has already defined who you are. You are his beloved child created in his image, and you are loved and wanted every day.

I want to leave you with just one thought today. If you get nothing else out of my sermon, remember this: because God created you in his image, you are enough. You are so enough that it is unbelievable how enough you are.