Does the Bible Say I Am Unique?

00:00:00.000 | A friend of mine in high school drove an old rusty car and on that old rusty car was a

00:00:10.560 | rather snarky bumper sticker.

00:00:12.680 | In big font it read "Your Unique!"

00:00:16.680 | And then in smaller font underneath it read "Just like everybody else!"

00:00:20.760 | It's a witty line.

00:00:22.800 | "Your unique just like everybody else."

00:00:25.160 | It's witty, but there's an important question to be asked about human uniqueness.

00:00:30.240 | According to the Bible, are we each uniquely made?

00:00:34.000 | The question comes in from Dimitri who lives in Sri Lanka.

00:00:36.640 | "Dear Pastor John, I'm a devoted listener to this podcast and an avid reader of your

00:00:40.960 | books.

00:00:41.960 | I've found so much clarity to many theological questions I've struggled with throughout

00:00:45.280 | my life.

00:00:46.280 | So thank you.

00:00:47.280 | But I have this remaining question.

00:00:49.400 | Did God make me unique?

00:00:52.160 | I have to assume that there are a lot of people similar to me across the globe and I'm rather

00:00:57.080 | un-unique in God's eyes.

00:01:00.000 | I have come across plenty of Bible verses about how God created us for a specific providential

00:01:04.120 | purpose.

00:01:05.120 | There are others that speak of God's intimacy.

00:01:06.640 | He knows the number of hairs on our head and every tear that we cry.

00:01:11.400 | But does the Bible say I am unique compared to others?

00:01:14.360 | I can't find a specific Bible verse to confirm it and yet I've heard it affirmed by trusted

00:01:18.840 | preachers.

00:01:19.840 | But is it biblical?

00:01:21.840 | Is human uniqueness defensible from the Bible?

00:01:26.280 | I think individual human uniqueness is defensible from the Bible but not directly.

00:01:33.040 | That is, not by a quotation but only by implication.

00:01:37.200 | In other words, I don't know of any quotation from the Bible to the effect that every human

00:01:47.000 | being is in some way different from every other human being.

00:01:51.960 | There may be one and I just can't find it.

00:01:54.720 | You should write to us here at APJ if you find it.

00:01:58.040 | So first, let me explain what I mean by the Bible pointing or by implication teaching

00:02:06.680 | a person's uniqueness and why that is important.

00:02:12.200 | And then I'll close by focusing on something that I think is far more important.

00:02:19.560 | So the first thing we need to do is establish two foundational truths about the way God

00:02:26.400 | relates to each individual human.

00:02:30.040 | The first is that he knits each person together in the womb.

00:02:36.560 | And the second is that he governs by his providence every single one of the millions of influences

00:02:48.320 | that shape what we become every day.

00:02:53.200 | Cradle to the grave.

00:02:54.840 | So first, God made every human, made them intricately with attention to everything about

00:03:03.640 | them genetically and every other way in their mother's womb.

00:03:10.120 | Psalm 139 verse 13, "You formed my inward parts.

00:03:16.760 | You knitted me together in my mother's womb."

00:03:21.800 | Now the point is this.

00:03:23.920 | The picture is not one of impersonal assembly line.

00:03:29.760 | The picture is of a God with knitting needles in his hands, fashioning a garment stitch

00:03:37.840 | by stitch.

00:03:40.220 | God created you, Demetri, by his infinite wisdom, including all the things that you

00:03:46.160 | like about yourself, all the things you don't like about yourself, all the strengths and

00:03:52.040 | all the weaknesses, all the abilities, all the disabilities.

00:03:56.680 | He was knitting all of that together in your mother's womb.

00:04:02.340 | When Moses complained to God that he couldn't speak and that God's promise to go with

00:04:07.960 | him and help him was of little comfort, God rebuked his doubt with these amazing words.

00:04:16.320 | Who made man's mouth?

00:04:18.440 | Who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind?

00:04:22.960 | Is it not I, the Lord?

00:04:25.600 | Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.

00:04:32.920 | So that's the Bible's first premise.

00:04:35.880 | God made everybody, knitting us intricately and individually together in our mother's

00:04:44.520 | wombs just the way we are.

00:04:47.560 | Second, God's providence is the all-embracing, all-pervasive work over all of our experience.

00:04:57.080 | Nothing happens to you or has ever happened to you or will ever happen to you except what

00:05:04.360 | God plans.

00:05:07.200 | Jesus made this point by picking one of the most random things, events in the world, and

00:05:14.800 | attributing it to God and only to God.

00:05:18.240 | Matthew 10, 29.

00:05:19.560 | Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?

00:05:22.960 | I mean, how insignificant are they?

00:05:25.940 | And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.

00:05:34.600 | Millions and millions and millions of sparrows in this world, thousands dying daily, utterly

00:05:44.440 | insignificant and unknown to man, and not one of them falling from a tree apart from

00:05:51.600 | God's providence.

00:05:54.400 | Or as Proverbs says about another kind of random event, like rolling dice, the lot,

00:06:00.900 | we would say the dice, are cast in the lap, and every decision is from the Lord in Las Vegas.

00:06:08.960 | So the point is that nothing happens to you or has ever happened to you or will ever happen

00:06:17.960 | to you except as God has designed it.

00:06:20.720 | Now if those two biblical premises stand, one, you are created by God down to the very

00:06:27.560 | atoms and molecules of your DNA, and two, all your experiences are planned by God down

00:06:34.280 | to the slightest breeze that blows a strand of your hair, then what you are in all your

00:06:41.320 | physical, psychological, relational, spiritual peculiarities are owing to God.

00:06:47.160 | It's owing to God.

00:06:50.240 | Then you take those two truths and think about their implications.

00:06:55.640 | This is why I said it's not a direct teaching, it's an implication.

00:06:59.480 | The Bible tells us to do that kind of thinking, 2 Timothy 2.7.

00:07:03.080 | Think over what I say and the Lord will give you understanding.

00:07:06.960 | And when you think about those two realities, you realize nobody, absolutely nobody has

00:07:14.800 | had your experiences.

00:07:18.580 | They have had similar experiences, but not your experiences.

00:07:23.960 | You have had millions of experiences, tiny and huge, lasting one second and lasting a

00:07:32.880 | year, conscious, unconscious, and all of them shape you.

00:07:38.860 | Every day we are being shaped by what we experience.

00:07:42.560 | Pathways in our brains are being laid down.

00:07:46.400 | Data is being stored and nobody, absolutely nobody in the world has the same collection

00:07:54.160 | of millions of shaping experiences as you have.

00:07:57.160 | Similar?

00:07:58.160 | Yes.

00:07:59.160 | The same?

00:08:00.160 | Never.

00:08:01.160 | You are the only person who can have your experiences.

00:08:06.800 | Therefore you are the only you in the world and in history, history, all of it.

00:08:15.040 | And since God is the creator of the experiencer in the womb and the governor of the experiences

00:08:24.040 | in life, the unique you is you by God's design.

00:08:30.960 | You are not random.

00:08:33.240 | You're not a sample of humanity.

00:08:36.480 | You are you by God's creating and providential design.

00:08:40.680 | And the reason that matters is that the Bible teaches that everything, including every individual,

00:08:47.200 | exists for the glory of Christ and the glory of God.

00:08:51.200 | Colossians 1.16, "All things were created through Christ and for Christ, for Christ,

00:08:59.600 | for his glory."

00:09:00.600 | Romans 11.36, "From him, from God, through him, to him, are all things, to him, all things,

00:09:08.040 | to him, to his glory, all things."

00:09:11.400 | This means that the person you are, with all the uniquenesses of your genetic makeup and

00:09:20.240 | all your experiences, exists for the glory of Christ and the glory of God.

00:09:26.520 | You are like a prism shaped like no other prism in the world, so that when the light

00:09:33.600 | of God shines on you, there is a kind of refraction, a combination of colors, so to speak, that

00:09:42.080 | only you can refract.

00:09:46.060 | And that's why you matter.

00:09:48.320 | Your life, devoted to God, reflects his glory in a way no other life can.

00:09:57.120 | Similar?

00:09:58.640 | Yes, but not the same.

00:10:02.480 | Your uniqueness devoted to Christ is a glory to Christ unlike any other.

00:10:09.760 | As I have searched the scriptures looking for a more explicit statement about our uniqueness

00:10:16.240 | individually, the closest I have been able to come is Revelations 2.17, where Jesus says

00:10:23.640 | this, "To the one who conquers, I will give him a white stone with a new name written

00:10:31.440 | on it that no one knows except the one who receives it."

00:10:39.280 | Now I can't prove that the name written on your stone, Demetri, will be different from

00:10:48.400 | the name written on all the other believers' stones.

00:10:53.520 | The text doesn't say that.

00:10:55.920 | But here's what it does say, and this is what I was referring to way back at the beginning

00:11:01.680 | when I said that we would close on something more important than our unique existence.

00:11:08.400 | Revelation 2.17 does say that there is a unique attentiveness that Christ gives to every one

00:11:15.740 | of his people, a uniquely personal relationship, because he says, "Nobody knows your name except

00:11:24.560 | me and you."

00:11:27.320 | In other words, he turns our attention away from the uniqueness of our name to the uniqueness

00:11:34.600 | of our relationship with him.

00:11:37.680 | Whatever your name—and I do think it's unique, by the way—only Christ knows it and relates

00:11:45.120 | to you personally with it.

00:11:48.160 | So I would encourage Demetri and all of us, devote the uniqueness of your existence to

00:11:57.840 | the glory of Christ and treasure the uniqueness of Christ's attentiveness above your unique

00:12:06.840 | existence.

00:12:08.900 | Really well put together case, Pastor John.

00:12:10.600 | Thank you for thinking through it.

00:12:11.960 | And Demetri, great question.

00:12:13.720 | Thanks for sending it in.

00:12:15.280 | And listeners, thank you for joining us today.

00:12:16.760 | You can ask a question of your own, search our growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast,

00:12:20.800 | all at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:12:26.280 | I am your host Tony Reinke.

00:12:27.280 | We will see you back here next time on Wednesday.

00:12:29.640 | Thanks for listening.

00:12:30.640 | Appreciate it.

00:12:31.640 | We'll see you then.

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Does the Bible Say I Am Unique?

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