Distinct but Dependent

identity - who or what a person or thing is; a set of characteristics or beliefs that make a person or group unique

You will never know who you really are until you know who God created you to be.

Your value isn't rooted in who or what you are, but in whose you are.

Any time we allow the culture around us to treat any other person with less value, it is a direct attack on the image of God.

Genesis 1:26-27ESV

26 Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

We are distinct but dependent.

To be a man or woman isn't to fit a certain mold, but to live out our God-given calling in confidence.

Genesis 2:15-23ESV

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,“This at last is bone of my bonesand flesh of my flesh;she shall be called Woman,because she was taken out of Man.”

1. Men were created to be cultivators.
2. Women were created to be helpers.

Genesis 3:16-19ESV

16 To the woman he said,“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband,but he shall rule over you.” 17 And to Adam he said,“Because you have listened to the voice of your wifeand have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you,‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your faceyou shall eat bread,till you return to the ground,for out of it you were taken; for you are dust,and to dust you shall return.”

Sin puts death in life, pain in purpose, and conflict in calling.

Jesus brings life to death, purpose to pain, and calling to conflict.