There’s no more important question for any generation than: Who are you?
In the past, folks would answer that question by looking outward—talking about where they live, who their parents are, or their family’s occupation (which hadn’t changed in many generations).
Beginning at least with the dawn of Romanticism, people began looking inward. As one German philosopher Johann Herder wrote his fiancé in 1773 a statement that could be included in any recent Disney movie,
“All our actions should be self-determined, in accordance with our innermost character—we must be true to ourselves.”
There is value in looking outward and inward as we think about who we are and how we are called to live—but it is most important for us to be continually looking Godward.
Specifically, we are not meant to read the Bible as the story of those people, nor even as only the story of Jesus, but as our story. We are meant to read the story of the Bible like we might read about Washington crossing the Delaware or the D-Day invasions or the Twin Towers on 9/11—as something that explains who we are. We need to take in the story of the Bible, not just so that we can learn the facts or gain salvation, but so that we can know who we are.
That is one of the main reasons we have been studying the book of Genesis—to (re)learn who we are.
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM GENESIS?
We have learned that we are made in the image of our sovereign, wise, breathtakingly-good God.
We have learned that we are not neuter but are made male or female and called to reflect and represent God in distinct, God-glorifying ways.
We have learned that we are prone to wander. The sin that stained the lives of Adam and Eve and our forefathers stains us. We are prone to wander astray—to erupt in self-pity like Cain, to build our own kingdoms like the Tower of Babel, to protect ourselves rather than love our family like Abraham, to take matters into our own hands to get what we want like Jacob.
We have learned that we are children of the promise. In Christ, we are all sons of Abraham by faith (Gal. 3:29). Our lives are not meandering along aimlessly, our lives are directed and defined by the promises of our God who loves us and has welcomed us home as his precious children.
We have learned that every detail of our lives is ordered by God’s good, unstoppable providence. What others mean for evil, he means for good. What others intend to tear us down, he intends to use to make us more like Christ.
We have learned through the trials of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph that we are safe in the hands of him who knows what he is doing.
We have learned to walk by faith. Theodore Cuyler says it so well in his book God’s Light On Dark Clouds,
“Faith carries present loads and meets present assaults and feeds on present promises, and commits the future to a faithful God.” Theodore Cuyler
SO, WHO ARE YOU?
The book of Genesis was written to the people of Israel as they were wondering through the wilderness to remind them who God is and who he has been. It was written to the give the people of Israel his resume, better yet his track record.
Wonderfully, as pastor John Preston once said, all of Genesis was written to say to us: “What I was to them, the same will I be to you.”
So, who are you?
You are the child of God. You are beautifully and distinctly made. You are prone to wander, but you have been chased down by the one who sought the trickster Jacob. You are kept by the promise. You are held in the unshakeable hands of God and his unstoppable providence.
Who are you? You are the living God’s. You belong to him! And what he was to all those who are his before you, he will be the same to you.
I pray that when we talk about who we are, we do not talk long before we're awestruck and steeled with remembering whose we are.
Thank you, Genesis.