Because of the Fall, our basic orientation is a falling away from our Creator. The result? God has become a stranger, and we have become strangers to ourselves. And Jesus has come to show us the way back to God through his life, death, & resurrection from the dead. This message was given on July 19, 2015 at New City Church in Calgary by Pastor John Ferguson. For more info please visit: www.newcitychurch.ca

1. Strangers to
Ourselves
image: mafleen
~Genesis 3:1-10~

2. Know Yourself

3. Why do we
not know
ourselves ?

4. “We knowers
are unknown
to ourselves...”
Friedrich Nietzsche
German Philosopher

5. Why it is that of all
the billions and
billions of strange
objects in the
cosmos—novas,
quasars, pulsars,
black holes—
YOU are beyond
doubt the strangest?

6. Know Yourself
Define Yourself

7. Bruce Jenner: “Call me Caitlyn”

8. Rachel Dolezal: “I identify as black.”

9. “Most vampires believe they were born that way;
they don’t choose this.”
~ Dr. D.J. Williams, Idaho State University
People Who ‘Identify As Real Vampires’

10. Define Yourself
Express Yourself

11. “Every man has forgotten
who he is. One may
understand the cosmos, but
never the ego; the self is
more distant than any star....
We are all under the same
mental calamity; we have all
forgotten our names. We
have all forgotten what we
really are…. we forget that
we have forgotten.”

12. Is it possible
that we have
forgotten
who we are
?

13. Strangers to
Ourselves
image: mafleen
~Genesis 3:1-10~

14. 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty
Genesis 3:1-10
than any other beast of the field that the
Lord God had made. He said the woman,
“Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat
from any tree in the garden.”

15. 2 And the woman said to the serpent,
Genesis 3:1-10
“We may eat of the fruit of the trees of
the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You all not
eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the
midst of the garden, neither shall you
touch it, lest you die.’”

16. 4 But the serpent said, “You will not
Genesis 3:1-10
surely die. 5 For God knows that when
you eat of it, your eyes will be opened,
and you shall be like God, knowing good
and evil.”

17. 6 So when the woman saw that the tree
Genesis 3:1-10
was good for food, and that it was a
delight to the eyes, and that the tree was
to be desired to make one wise, she took
of its fruit and ate, and she also gave
some to her husband who was with her,
and he ate.

18. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened,
Genesis 3:1-10
and they knew that they were naked.
And they sewed fig leaves together and
made themselves loincloths.

19. 8 And they heard the sound of the Lord
Genesis 3:1-10
God walking in the garden in the cool of
the day, and the man and his wife hid
themselves from the presence of the Lord
God among the trees of the garden.
9 But the Lord God called to the man

20. …and said to him, “Where are you?”
Genesis 3:1-10
10 And he said, “I heard the sound of
you in the garden, and I was afraid,
because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

21. “In knowing God,
each of us also
knows himself.”
~ John Calvin,
Institutes of the Christian Religion
French Edition, 1560

22. Because of the Fall,
our basic orientation is
a falling away from God.

23. We welcome all who are
broken and need healing.

25. We enter the Story
that Jesus is telling.

26. “Your real, new self…
will not come as long as
you are looking for it. It
will come when you are
looking for Him.”

27. “Our orientation toward
greed, work, pride, porn,
gossip, lust, fear, or
homosexuality is not
naming us; Jesus’s naming
of us goes deeper than our
accomplishments, our bank
accounts, our failures, or
our genitals.”

28. “He died
defined by our sin,
so that we live
defined by his
righteousness.”

29. We battle our
fallen desires,
not endorse them.

30. “All of us have desires
that are warped as a
result of our fallen
nature. Desires for
things that God has
forbidden are a
reflection of how sin has
distorted me, not how
God has made me.”
Sam Alberry
Is God Anti-Gay? And Other Questions
about Homosexuality, The Bible,
and Same-Sex Attraction

31. “The gospel resists the fallen
inclinations of Christian
believers. When we engage
with God in Christ and take
seriously the commands for
purity that flow from the
gospel, we always find our
sinful dreams and desires
challenged. From God’s
perspective, our [sinful]
inclinations are like ‘the
craving for salt of a person
who is dying of thirst…’.

32. “...Yet when God begins to
try to change the craving
and give us the living water
that will ultimately quench
our thirst, we scream in pain,
protesting that we were
made for salt. The change
hurts…. In the long run, the
cruelest thing that God could
do would be to leave us
alone with our desires….”

33. “As obedient children, do
not be conformed to the
passions of your former
ignorance, but as he who
called you is holy, you
also should be holy in all
your conduct….”
~ The Apostle Peter
in 1 Peter 1:14-15

34. “Beloved, I urge you as
sojourners and exiles to
abstain from the
passions of the flesh,
which wage war against
your soul.”
~ The Apostle Peter
in 1 Peter 2:11

35. We contend that Jesus is
better and always worth it

36. In all my sorrows Jesus is better
Make my heart believe
In all my victories Jesus is better
Make my heart believe
Than any comfort Jesus is better
Make my heart believe

37. More than all riches Jesus is better
Make my heart believe
Our souls declaring Jesus is better
Make my heart believe
Our song eternal Jesus is better
Make my heart believe

38. Glory, glory!
We have no other king
but Jesus Lord of all.

39. image credit: mafleen
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mafleen/8472558582/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
flickr images courtesy of:
image credit: marian b.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/35355198@N05/3626256142/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
other images used for educational purposes:
http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-bruce-jenner-gender-change-captures-us-attention-2015-2
http://www.people.com/article/man-identified-by-dolezal-as-father-defends-her-albert-wilkerson
image credit: Jimmy_Joe
https://www.flickr.com/photos/joc67/510390453
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
image credit:Abdullah Bin Sahl
https://www.flickr.com/photos/76416192@N06/13952977433/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
image credit: winnifredxoxo
https://www.flickr.com/photos/61056899@N06/5751301741/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
http://almayasabdam.com/pastor-sam-allberry-on-homosexuality-can-you-be-both-gay-and-a-christian/