WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.560 It's Genesis chapter one verses 26 to 31 and Sue is going to come and read for us. 00:00:08.560 --> 00:00:15.359 Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion 00:00:15.359 --> 00:00:20.760 over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and 00:00:20.760 --> 00:00:26.679 over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. 00:00:26.679 --> 00:00:33.479 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female 00:00:33.479 --> 00:00:35.759 he created them. 00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:42.760 And God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth 00:00:42.760 --> 00:00:49.239 and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens 00:00:49.239 --> 00:00:53.159 and over every living thing that moves on the earth. 00:00:53.159 --> 00:01:00.799 And God said, behold I've given you every plant, every plant yielding seed that is on 00:01:00.799 --> 00:01:06.239 the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit, you shall have them for 00:01:06.239 --> 00:01:12.000 food and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:17.879 that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I've given every green 00:01:17.879 --> 00:01:25.959 plant for food and it was so and God saw everything that he had made and behold it 00:01:25.959 --> 00:01:33.079 was very good and there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. 00:01:33.079 --> 00:01:39.919 We are in a series on Genesis chapter one and two and so far we've been focused on the 00:01:39.919 --> 00:01:47.280 reality that God is the Creator who made the world and that means we are creatures and 00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:52.320 God is absolutely necessary, we are relative beings. 00:01:52.320 --> 00:01:56.760 And the theme in the midst of that so far has been focused on the fact that when God 00:01:56.760 --> 00:02:04.280 created the world and he made us, we can say, because of that we can say God is most hidden 00:02:04.280 --> 00:02:07.960 and yet most revealed. 00:02:07.960 --> 00:02:13.520 God is, as the theologians have said, transcendent, so big, so great, so powerful that he can 00:02:13.520 --> 00:02:18.560 create the world out of absolutely nothing and yet at the same time being that big, that 00:02:18.560 --> 00:02:23.320 transcendent is also close to us and present with us and near to us. 00:02:23.320 --> 00:02:29.000 So hidden yet so revealed simultaneously and we talked last week about how much we forget 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:35.280 that, we forget that because God made us and God sustains us and right now Colossians 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:41.160 one says if God removed his powerful presence from us, the world would split apart. 00:02:41.159 --> 00:02:46.159 We forget how very close God is to every single one of us right now. 00:02:46.159 --> 00:02:50.639 No matter what you believe in, no matter what you think about God, it is God who's sustaining 00:02:50.639 --> 00:02:52.139 you. 00:02:52.139 --> 00:02:57.199 And so in him we live and move and have our being, he is not far from any of us. 00:02:57.199 --> 00:03:00.000 And so seek him. 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:01.519 Maybe that's the call of Genesis one. 00:03:01.519 --> 00:03:04.159 Will you seek the Lord while he may be found? 00:03:04.159 --> 00:03:05.519 He is very close to you. 00:03:05.519 --> 00:03:10.199 Now the same thing comes up again today as we think about this passage that Sue read 00:03:10.199 --> 00:03:16.599 for us about the image of God that we were made in God's image. 00:03:16.599 --> 00:03:21.519 We will never stop as human beings asking the question, what am I? 00:03:21.519 --> 00:03:23.079 What is a human? 00:03:23.079 --> 00:03:25.079 Even more importantly than what am I? 00:03:25.079 --> 00:03:26.159 What is my composition? 00:03:26.159 --> 00:03:29.000 What is a human is the question, who am I? 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:33.719 So we all of us know very well that we live in an age where everybody is talking about 00:03:33.719 --> 00:03:41.120 identity all the time and searching for identity and using phrases like finding themselves. 00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:46.360 So we're hungry for an identity to be distinct from other people. 00:03:46.360 --> 00:03:51.599 And the question, who am I comes up right on the first page of the Bible. 00:03:51.599 --> 00:03:58.360 Blaise Pascal, the great 18th century French mathematician, philosopher, he said, man is 00:03:58.360 --> 00:04:01.280 neither angel nor beast. 00:04:01.280 --> 00:04:06.560 And he's capturing there really the two ways that we tend to go with it when we make the 00:04:06.560 --> 00:04:09.920 mistake of misdefining what a human is. 00:04:09.920 --> 00:04:13.560 Angel or beast, in other words a demigod. 00:04:13.560 --> 00:04:16.120 Lots of people in the modern world think of themselves as gods. 00:04:16.120 --> 00:04:19.120 They might not say that out loud, but that's how we behave. 00:04:19.120 --> 00:04:25.360 Self-made people in charge of our own destiny, in victus, captain of our soul, conqueror, 00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:29.600 living for the lavishness of all the possible pleasures we could find. 00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:35.320 And on the other hand, many people say in the same breath, and of course we are beasts. 00:04:35.320 --> 00:04:40.680 Nothing but a bit more mutated than the apes right below us. 00:04:40.680 --> 00:04:46.879 And the Bible comes in four little words, revolutionizes anthropology, what a human 00:04:46.879 --> 00:04:51.240 is, made in God's image. 00:04:51.240 --> 00:04:56.160 And that phrase is at the backbone of so much of our society, even though our society doesn't 00:04:56.160 --> 00:05:02.439 know it, like rights language, made in God's image. 00:05:02.439 --> 00:05:06.120 And if you get it, if you capture it, if you believe it, it'll change your life. 00:05:06.120 --> 00:05:07.520 It'll change what you think about yourself. 00:05:07.520 --> 00:05:09.680 It'll change what you think about God. 00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:13.240 And so let's ask today, what is the image of God? 00:05:13.240 --> 00:05:14.240 What is it? 00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:15.740 Who are we? 00:05:15.740 --> 00:05:18.240 Three things that we learn here. 00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:21.920 First, the image of God teaches us we were made for relationships. 00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:26.319 Secondly, that we are creatures but unique. 00:05:26.319 --> 00:05:30.080 And thirdly, that we are, we are God's image. 00:05:30.080 --> 00:05:33.819 And then we'll conclude with the fact that we suppress that reality. 00:05:33.819 --> 00:05:37.160 So let's think about that together for just a little bit. 00:05:37.160 --> 00:05:40.960 First, what does it mean to be made in God's image? 00:05:40.960 --> 00:05:46.240 The very first thing we see chronologically in the passage from verse 26 is that we're 00:05:46.240 --> 00:05:47.520 made for relationships. 00:05:47.519 --> 00:05:52.599 And so if you look down with me at verse 26, I just want to focus on this little sentence 00:05:52.599 --> 00:05:53.959 for a second. 00:05:53.959 --> 00:05:59.279 Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. 00:05:59.279 --> 00:06:03.779 There are a few really important words there to think about. 00:06:03.779 --> 00:06:07.959 The first is, let us make man in our image. 00:06:07.959 --> 00:06:12.599 This word man is the word Adam in Hebrew. 00:06:12.599 --> 00:06:16.919 You might say Adam as the scholars would say it. 00:06:16.920 --> 00:06:24.319 And here it's not referencing the man Adam, the man that we talk about in Genesis 2, though 00:06:24.319 --> 00:06:26.680 it is, but it's talking generically. 00:06:26.680 --> 00:06:29.480 So the word Adam just means human. 00:06:29.480 --> 00:06:34.040 So the very first thing we read is God says, let us make humanity in our image. 00:06:34.040 --> 00:06:35.240 It's male and female. 00:06:35.240 --> 00:06:36.319 We read that right after that. 00:06:36.319 --> 00:06:39.000 It's men and women made in the image of God. 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:41.040 That's what the word Adam there encompasses. 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:42.379 It's generic. 00:06:42.379 --> 00:06:48.159 If you back up just a second, just a bit, but then it's, first it says, then God said, 00:06:48.159 --> 00:06:53.800 let us make humanity male and female in our image after our likeness. 00:06:53.800 --> 00:07:01.800 Now the very first thing, the very first verb you get when God made us is God said, he spoke 00:07:01.800 --> 00:07:04.600 us into being. 00:07:04.600 --> 00:07:08.959 And you back up, we looked at this very briefly in the first week, but back up all the way 00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:13.359 to verse three, God said, let there be light and there was light. 00:07:13.359 --> 00:07:16.680 He spoke creation into being. 00:07:16.680 --> 00:07:21.699 Now one of the very first things you've got to say that we learn about God in Genesis 00:07:21.699 --> 00:07:25.659 1 is that God is a speaker, a communicator. 00:07:25.659 --> 00:07:30.799 And it doesn't say that he thought the world into being or that he thought humanity into 00:07:30.799 --> 00:07:32.479 existence. 00:07:32.479 --> 00:07:36.439 People have made that mistake in the past by thinking about God as basically a big thinker, 00:07:36.439 --> 00:07:41.360 you know, up in the sky with his hand on his chin, like the philosopher. 00:07:41.360 --> 00:07:43.480 And no, instead we don't have that God thought us into being. 00:07:43.480 --> 00:07:44.480 Of course he could have. 00:07:44.480 --> 00:07:47.399 He has a mind, but it says that he used language. 00:07:47.399 --> 00:07:50.319 He used speech to make us. 00:07:50.319 --> 00:07:54.199 And there's a big difference in thinking and merely thinking, but also speaking. 00:07:54.199 --> 00:07:56.439 Speech is public. 00:07:56.439 --> 00:07:59.740 Speech is something that's shared because he spoke. 00:07:59.740 --> 00:08:03.040 That means that we can continue to hear him. 00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:10.400 And one of the very first things I think we learn about us is that God made us as himself 00:08:10.400 --> 00:08:13.280 a relational speaker. 00:08:13.280 --> 00:08:16.800 You know, if you speak, it means that you seek relationship. 00:08:16.800 --> 00:08:21.360 If you communicate with somebody, if you send your voice out into the world, it means that 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:25.000 you're trying to communicate with another. 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:27.160 And if you ask, what is God's image? 00:08:27.160 --> 00:08:31.400 One of the very first things you have to say is it's got to be at least part of it captured 00:08:31.399 --> 00:08:36.000 in language that we have the ability to speak. 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:37.000 We can communicate. 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:42.919 And that means that we're relational beings because God is relational. 00:08:42.919 --> 00:08:47.679 And that relationship comes right out in the very fact that he uses words to make us. 00:08:47.679 --> 00:08:52.039 A public speech, a public testimony, his language. 00:08:52.039 --> 00:08:57.759 I don't want to focus on this, but it's not only that, but down in verse 31, it says that 00:08:57.759 --> 00:09:01.679 the words he used to make us when he had made everything, verse 31, he looked at what he 00:09:01.679 --> 00:09:06.240 had made and saw and said, it is very good. 00:09:06.240 --> 00:09:11.080 Now in a time where we are constantly bickering with one another in the public sphere about 00:09:11.080 --> 00:09:17.159 opinions, right now in America, there are lots of opinions between Republicans and Democrats, 00:09:17.159 --> 00:09:20.519 for example, about who's who and who's going to be the best. 00:09:20.519 --> 00:09:22.159 We have opinions. 00:09:22.159 --> 00:09:30.439 In the very beginning of human history, God spoke and then he interpreted what he made. 00:09:30.439 --> 00:09:35.240 He spoke the world into being and then he said, and it is good. 00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:39.759 And that's so important because look, we all have opinions about so much politics, what's 00:09:39.759 --> 00:09:43.199 good for culture, what's bad, all sorts of things, right? 00:09:43.199 --> 00:09:48.839 But it's important to know that there is a God who not only speaks this world into existence, 00:09:48.840 --> 00:09:52.360 but interprets it absolutely as well. 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:56.519 He speaks it and he says, this is what's good, this is what's not good. 00:09:56.519 --> 00:09:59.519 And that means that no matter what we think, no matter how much our opinions change, no 00:09:59.519 --> 00:10:03.480 matter how much politics changes, no matter how much the world changes all around us by 00:10:03.480 --> 00:10:09.440 the opinions that we all share and break against each other with, God has spoken and his opinion 00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:10.480 is not an opinion at all. 00:10:10.480 --> 00:10:11.480 It's absolute. 00:10:11.480 --> 00:10:14.040 Whatever he says is what's right, true, good. 00:10:14.039 --> 00:10:19.240 We have got God at the beginning of human history as a speaker and that means he is 00:10:19.240 --> 00:10:22.559 relational and we are relational. 00:10:22.559 --> 00:10:28.159 The very last bit of the sentence to see about that is it not only says that he spoke, but 00:10:28.159 --> 00:10:33.599 then it says, let us make man in our image. 00:10:33.599 --> 00:10:41.759 So then God speaks in the plural pronoun, let us in our, let us make man in our image. 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:46.480 There are lots of different ways potentially of interpreting the us language, but the most 00:10:46.480 --> 00:10:52.679 common, the most magisterial, the main interpretation throughout all of church history has been 00:10:52.679 --> 00:10:58.039 that when God does that, God the Father is speaking to God the Spirit and God the Son. 00:10:58.039 --> 00:11:01.679 You know, God has already spoken, his Spirit has already come into the world and that means 00:11:01.679 --> 00:11:08.519 he's acknowledging in that moment there's an usness, a try personality about God. 00:11:08.519 --> 00:11:14.639 Relational, that God exists, one God in three relations and he makes us in his image to 00:11:14.639 --> 00:11:15.639 be relational. 00:11:15.639 --> 00:11:16.840 And so what's the first lesson? 00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:23.840 The first lesson is that when God makes us through his speech, we realize that we are 00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:28.299 beings in his image made for relationships. 00:11:28.299 --> 00:11:30.360 We are made for relationships. 00:11:30.360 --> 00:11:36.399 We're made first for the deepest relationship we could possibly have with God and then with 00:11:36.399 --> 00:11:37.399 other people as well. 00:11:37.399 --> 00:11:43.759 And I just want to ask you today, you were made for a depth of relationship. 00:11:43.759 --> 00:11:47.279 Do you have a relationship with God who made you? 00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:52.240 Do you have a relationship with other people in the light of God's creating you? 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:54.480 You were made for that. 00:11:54.480 --> 00:12:00.720 And one of the things you could reflect on for just a moment is, you know, think about 00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:04.759 how much relationship and communication with language shapes who you are. 00:12:04.759 --> 00:12:08.000 We're asking the question, who are we? 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:11.639 And you know, think about the words that have been spoken to you throughout your life. 00:12:11.639 --> 00:12:16.120 The relationships you have with a mom or a dad or a sibling or a friend or the relationships 00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:22.919 you don't have, the relationship you don't have right now that you've always wanted, 00:12:22.919 --> 00:12:27.679 how much it affects you, how much it changes you, how much you are shaped by relationship 00:12:27.679 --> 00:12:29.200 and speech. 00:12:29.200 --> 00:12:36.920 You might, some of you in the room today will remember that one sentence that somebody spoke 00:12:36.920 --> 00:12:46.560 to you, you know, that person who spoke that sentence to you that year so long ago that 00:12:46.560 --> 00:12:51.640 shaped you horribly or wonderfully. 00:12:51.640 --> 00:12:54.840 That one line of relational communication. 00:12:54.840 --> 00:13:01.200 And the reason that there is such power in language and relationship is because that's 00:13:01.200 --> 00:13:04.840 exactly what God made you for. 00:13:04.840 --> 00:13:08.240 To be like Him, a speaker in relationship. 00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:12.399 How are you using your words in your relationships? 00:13:12.399 --> 00:13:14.840 Secondly, we're made for relationships. 00:13:14.840 --> 00:13:17.000 Secondly, who are we? 00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:21.280 The second thing we see here is that we are creatures, but we're unique. 00:13:21.279 --> 00:13:27.120 And if you back up in the passage to verse 24, just before where we started reading, 00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:32.799 if you have a Bible, God spoke and He said, let the earth bring forth living creatures. 00:13:32.799 --> 00:13:38.720 And then there's this chorus of, so the creeping things came according to their kinds, that's 00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:40.720 back a little bit. 00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:44.879 Before that, the fish came according to their kinds. 00:13:44.879 --> 00:13:48.639 And there's this refrain, according to their kinds, according to their kinds. 00:13:48.639 --> 00:13:54.960 And then it comes to us, and it said, but, or God said, let us make men in our image. 00:13:54.960 --> 00:13:58.960 There's a difference there, but there's a similarity there at the same time. 00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:05.000 All right, we were made on day six, like the rest of the land animals. 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:09.519 And when you look a little more closely, there's a word that's used throughout God's creation 00:14:09.519 --> 00:14:10.519 during day six. 00:14:10.519 --> 00:14:13.120 It's the word ground, the ground. 00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:15.480 The animals came from the ground. 00:14:15.480 --> 00:14:20.879 If you were to flip over to chapter two, verse seven, we're told that God made humanity 00:14:20.879 --> 00:14:23.039 from the ground, Adam from the ground. 00:14:23.039 --> 00:14:25.279 And it's the same idea. 00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:33.080 And the word in Hebrew for the ground is the word Adam with an A-H on the end of it. 00:14:33.080 --> 00:14:41.840 So God created Adam, Adam, male and female, and then God created us from the Adamah. 00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:44.360 You see the really tight connection there. 00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:48.639 And that's suggesting first that we, like the other land animals made on day six, we 00:14:48.639 --> 00:14:53.840 are people that come from the stuff of the world, the material. 00:14:53.840 --> 00:14:57.639 Another more pithy way to say it, we are earthy. 00:14:57.639 --> 00:14:59.440 God made us to be earthy. 00:14:59.440 --> 00:15:00.759 We are physical. 00:15:00.759 --> 00:15:01.840 We have bodies. 00:15:01.840 --> 00:15:03.399 We have appetites. 00:15:03.399 --> 00:15:06.680 There is something similar to us and the other animals. 00:15:06.680 --> 00:15:07.680 We all share. 00:15:07.680 --> 00:15:08.680 We get hungry. 00:15:08.680 --> 00:15:10.720 We long to eat. 00:15:10.720 --> 00:15:14.800 And one of the very first things we learn is that we're like the rest of the creatures 00:15:14.800 --> 00:15:15.800 in that way. 00:15:15.800 --> 00:15:21.660 Adam, humanity of the Adamah, the ground made from the earthy stuff, the dust as it's translated 00:15:21.660 --> 00:15:23.399 in the ESV. 00:15:23.399 --> 00:15:30.300 But at the same time, that chorus God created from the ground or from the sea according 00:15:30.300 --> 00:15:33.120 to their kinds when it gets to us stops. 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:34.639 That's not there. 00:15:34.639 --> 00:15:37.800 According to the kinds, the animals all were made according to their kinds. 00:15:37.799 --> 00:15:40.919 Thus we are made in God's image. 00:15:40.919 --> 00:15:42.639 And so the next thing you see is we are earthy. 00:15:42.639 --> 00:15:46.240 We are dusty people, we might say, physical. 00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:47.959 And yet there's something different about us. 00:15:47.959 --> 00:15:49.159 We're creatures, but we're unique. 00:15:49.159 --> 00:15:50.639 And what is it? 00:15:50.639 --> 00:15:53.799 And it's the fact that we're made in God's image and God is a spirit. 00:15:53.799 --> 00:15:56.639 And that means we're not merely earthy or dusty. 00:15:56.639 --> 00:15:59.599 We are in sold. 00:15:59.599 --> 00:16:01.539 We are spiritual. 00:16:01.539 --> 00:16:05.719 And so here's a really succinct way to define what a human is. 00:16:05.720 --> 00:16:11.160 A human is the meeting place between heaven and earth. 00:16:11.160 --> 00:16:17.600 A human being is where heaven and earth meet because we are people of the earth, dusty, 00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:20.200 physical, full of appetites. 00:16:20.200 --> 00:16:24.759 Yet we are spiritual beings made by God like God with a soul. 00:16:24.759 --> 00:16:26.720 We're embodied souls. 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:29.639 And so in us, we are not like the animals merely earthly. 00:16:29.639 --> 00:16:31.639 We are not like the angels merely heavenly. 00:16:31.639 --> 00:16:35.480 No, we are where heaven and earth meet together. 00:16:35.480 --> 00:16:40.920 And when you come to the New Testament, Ephesians chapter one verse 10, it says that salvation 00:16:40.920 --> 00:16:47.000 is ultimately God bringing heaven and earth together, the earthy and the spiritual. 00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:51.440 And that's why it is humans, we that are to be the inheritors of the kingdom. 00:16:51.440 --> 00:16:55.560 The angels, look, the angels have nothing on us. 00:16:55.560 --> 00:16:58.720 The angels cannot say this, made in God. 00:16:58.720 --> 00:17:00.759 The angels are not earthy. 00:17:00.759 --> 00:17:02.120 They're spiritual. 00:17:02.120 --> 00:17:03.480 And the animals are not spiritual. 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:04.720 They're earthy. 00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:11.039 But humans, we are the pinnacle creature, earthly and spiritual embodied souls. 00:17:11.039 --> 00:17:12.960 And so that's simply, what's the lesson? 00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:15.120 It's simply this. 00:17:15.120 --> 00:17:21.039 On the one hand, there have been numerous, so many, so often attempts. 00:17:21.039 --> 00:17:29.180 We as Christians often drift into this thinking that we want to repudiate the physical life. 00:17:29.180 --> 00:17:36.960 We in sub-Christian ways think that we're thinking christianly when we repudiate physicality 00:17:36.960 --> 00:17:42.880 and things like good food and the fact that God did make us as sexual beings. 00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:46.000 And so many other aspects of what it means to be physical. 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:48.600 And we can never, in other words, we're earthy. 00:17:48.600 --> 00:17:49.680 We're made to be earthy. 00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:51.720 We're Adam of the Adamah. 00:17:51.720 --> 00:17:55.039 We were made from the ground to be physical forever. 00:17:55.039 --> 00:17:58.759 And so anytime you are not with your body. 00:17:58.759 --> 00:18:01.759 That is a state of death. 00:18:01.759 --> 00:18:04.279 The soul goes home to be with the Lord, but it's intermediate. 00:18:04.279 --> 00:18:05.680 It's temporary. 00:18:05.680 --> 00:18:06.680 Not to stay that way. 00:18:06.680 --> 00:18:07.759 We want to rise from the dead. 00:18:07.759 --> 00:18:09.640 We want to be physical. 00:18:09.640 --> 00:18:14.599 And at the same time, we must never repudiate or forget that there is much more to this 00:18:14.599 --> 00:18:17.079 life than what you can see with your five senses. 00:18:17.079 --> 00:18:20.039 Here, taste touch, that you are spiritual. 00:18:20.039 --> 00:18:22.279 You are a soul. 00:18:22.279 --> 00:18:23.440 Never one against the other. 00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:25.599 Never settle, always both. 00:18:25.599 --> 00:18:28.400 Third, finally, what do we learn? 00:18:28.400 --> 00:18:35.440 We learn thirdly that what it means to be the image of God is that we are God's image. 00:18:35.440 --> 00:18:38.400 We are God's image, you might say. 00:18:38.400 --> 00:18:45.160 In the ancient Near East, when this passage is dropped into history by God through Moses, 00:18:45.160 --> 00:18:51.280 the Israelites had left Egypt and they were about to enter the Promised Land. 00:18:51.280 --> 00:18:56.120 And they were a people who had been immersed in a world of polytheism, worshiping lots 00:18:56.120 --> 00:18:57.120 of gods. 00:18:57.119 --> 00:19:01.319 And the way that the Egyptians worshiped, the way the Babylonians worshiped, and the 00:19:01.319 --> 00:19:07.000 way that most humans, all of us, drift in our worship is that we make images. 00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:11.159 So this word image here, made in the image of God, you remember this word probably if 00:19:11.159 --> 00:19:16.159 you've read the Bible at all from a place like Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments. 00:19:16.159 --> 00:19:18.799 You shall not make an image. 00:19:18.799 --> 00:19:22.559 You shall not make a graven image of God. 00:19:22.559 --> 00:19:27.079 And every single one of us, all of us humans, we drift to actually trying to picture the 00:19:27.079 --> 00:19:30.559 divine in wood and stone. 00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:35.419 The reason Exodus 20, the second commandment exists is because God is telling us there 00:19:35.419 --> 00:19:38.079 already is an image. 00:19:38.079 --> 00:19:43.119 You don't make an image, you don't craft an image, you don't need an idol because the 00:19:43.119 --> 00:19:46.960 image of God, the likeness of God has already gone into this world. 00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:55.399 And in the city of Edinburgh, there is 1,830 images of God per square kilometer. 00:19:55.400 --> 00:19:58.240 That's the population density of the city. 00:19:58.240 --> 00:20:00.160 The image of God is everywhere. 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:04.120 You don't need an image, humanity is the image of God. 00:20:04.120 --> 00:20:12.040 And yet, century after century after century, people have tried to sort of capture what 00:20:12.040 --> 00:20:20.160 the image is in a capacity or a function or an aspect of what a human is. 00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:23.120 So people, for example, have suggested, okay, what's the image? 00:20:23.119 --> 00:20:28.519 The image is our ability to think and to be able to do mathematics and to do logic and 00:20:28.519 --> 00:20:31.799 to be people of reason and intellect. 00:20:31.799 --> 00:20:35.199 And other people have come and said, no, that's not exactly the primary image. 00:20:35.199 --> 00:20:40.439 The primary image is the ability to have the character of God and to behave morally and 00:20:40.439 --> 00:20:43.199 to be a good person and to do good things into the world. 00:20:43.199 --> 00:20:47.959 And other people have come and said, no, the primary aspect of the image is to be a speaker, 00:20:47.959 --> 00:20:51.239 to have language like we saw just a little bit ago. 00:20:51.240 --> 00:20:53.799 And others have come and said different things. 00:20:53.799 --> 00:21:00.359 John Locke, who is the great English philosopher of the Enlightenment, he said, our understanding 00:21:00.359 --> 00:21:05.720 and human intelligence is what makes us into the image of God. 00:21:05.720 --> 00:21:10.079 And if that's, let me just ask you, if that's the case, if it's being intelligent, having 00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:14.480 the possibility of intelligence that makes you the image of God, what happens when you're 00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:21.000 laying in a coma in the hospital and you don't have the possibility of intelligence any longer? 00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:26.799 Is that person, your loved one, you still the image of God? 00:21:26.799 --> 00:21:31.839 And others have come like Adam Smith, you know, one of the most frequent things you 00:21:31.839 --> 00:21:37.960 see in the passage in verse 26 and 28 is that humankind was made to rule over the other 00:21:37.960 --> 00:21:38.960 creatures. 00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:42.440 Dominion, we'll talk about this in a couple weeks, more detailed. 00:21:42.440 --> 00:21:48.319 Adam Smith, our friend whose statue is just down on the Royal Mile, he says that what 00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:54.639 makes a person the image of God is the ability to work, to create markets. 00:21:54.639 --> 00:21:59.439 And let me ask, sure, that's an aspect of what it means to be human, but what happens 00:21:59.439 --> 00:22:04.879 when a disability strikes and you have no possibility of productivity any longer in 00:22:04.879 --> 00:22:05.879 your life? 00:22:05.879 --> 00:22:08.079 Is that person still the image of God? 00:22:08.079 --> 00:22:14.559 And Alexis de Tocqueville, the French thinker who is really famous for basically assessing 00:22:14.559 --> 00:22:17.119 the history of the American Revolution. 00:22:17.119 --> 00:22:22.519 He came and said, the image of God is our ability to improve ourselves and to make progress 00:22:22.519 --> 00:22:24.799 in this world. 00:22:24.799 --> 00:22:30.559 And what happens when your life is a failure and you never made any progress and you've 00:22:30.559 --> 00:22:33.799 made all the wrong decisions and you stumbled into utter chaos in your life? 00:22:33.799 --> 00:22:36.119 Are you still the image of God? 00:22:36.119 --> 00:22:40.759 And you see, every single attempt to locate the image of God throughout world history, 00:22:40.759 --> 00:22:47.039 which has been thousands, thousands and thousands of times, people have attempted it. 00:22:47.039 --> 00:22:49.200 One falls and fails. 00:22:49.200 --> 00:22:55.319 These are all aspects, sure, of what it means to be a human, but none of them the thing, 00:22:55.319 --> 00:22:57.119 the thing that makes you the image of God. 00:22:57.119 --> 00:22:58.759 What is it? 00:22:58.759 --> 00:23:00.399 What is it? 00:23:00.399 --> 00:23:02.200 What's the image of God? 00:23:02.200 --> 00:23:06.339 And the best way to answer it is when somebody asks you, what's the image of God? 00:23:06.339 --> 00:23:10.119 You just lift up your hand and point at other people. 00:23:10.119 --> 00:23:14.000 Don't do it in public, you know, don't point a lot outside in the streets. 00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:17.720 But in here you can, right now, you can say, what's the image of God? 00:23:17.720 --> 00:23:20.119 And I just look around and I'll point at you. 00:23:20.119 --> 00:23:22.200 You are the image of God. 00:23:22.200 --> 00:23:26.880 It's not an aspect, it's not a capacity, it's not an aspect of function, it's not your ability 00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:32.619 to think, it's not your ability to speak, because you could lose that. 00:23:32.619 --> 00:23:37.559 You could lose all the aspects, you can lose your ability to reason just like you can lose 00:23:37.559 --> 00:23:41.240 your hair and you're still the image of God. 00:23:41.240 --> 00:23:42.240 What is the image of God? 00:23:42.240 --> 00:23:47.319 Who are, humans are, male and female, he created them in his image. 00:23:47.319 --> 00:23:50.799 Boys and girls, men and women, we are, we are the image of God into this world. 00:23:50.799 --> 00:23:53.240 It's as simple as that. 00:23:53.240 --> 00:23:57.440 And that means something very important today, two things, and we'll move to the close, and 00:23:57.440 --> 00:23:58.440 that's this. 00:23:58.440 --> 00:24:05.319 One, we learn there that, that means that we are not self-made people. 00:24:05.319 --> 00:24:07.680 We're created. 00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:12.960 And we immediately on top of that have to say that we do not have the right to curate 00:24:12.960 --> 00:24:16.200 our own identities to the max. 00:24:16.200 --> 00:24:17.200 Who are you? 00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:18.759 You're the image of God. 00:24:18.759 --> 00:24:25.080 You're not defined primarily by your feelings, you're not defined primarily by your sexuality. 00:24:25.080 --> 00:24:30.360 You're not defined primarily by your decisions, though all of it comes in as factors. 00:24:30.360 --> 00:24:34.799 But the first thing we are told about who you are, who we are, is you are God's image, 00:24:34.799 --> 00:24:35.799 that's your fundamental identity. 00:24:35.799 --> 00:24:38.639 It can't be taken away from you. 00:24:38.639 --> 00:24:41.839 And on the one hand, that's hard news because we've suppressed that. 00:24:41.839 --> 00:24:46.200 On the other hand, it's beautiful news because you might come today thinking, I don't know 00:24:46.200 --> 00:24:49.480 what God thinks about me. 00:24:49.480 --> 00:24:54.079 And what God thinks about you is you're his image, he knows you and he loves you. 00:24:54.079 --> 00:24:56.480 And that can never be taken away. 00:24:56.480 --> 00:24:59.440 That can never be taken away from you, it's fundamental. 00:24:59.440 --> 00:25:04.480 We're not self-made, but at the same time, we're immensely valuable. 00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:07.960 Who among us here? 00:25:07.960 --> 00:25:11.920 If we are made as God's image, made to be God's image, made to be, you don't need a 00:25:11.920 --> 00:25:14.880 graven image because you image God into the world. 00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:20.440 Who among us today, though, can come and say, I have made a great go of that? 00:25:20.440 --> 00:25:25.799 I have imaged God as his image into the world by reflecting his character in every way at 00:25:25.799 --> 00:25:28.799 all times. 00:25:28.799 --> 00:25:34.399 We're more subtly, how often do we forget that we were made in God's image and live a 00:25:34.399 --> 00:25:38.079 life of practical atheism? 00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:41.879 Suppressing the reality of who we are by the simple fact that we just don't actually care 00:25:41.879 --> 00:25:43.399 very much. 00:25:43.399 --> 00:25:47.960 Boy, we're made in God's image, but we have suppressed it. 00:25:47.960 --> 00:25:50.440 We have suppressed it in unrighteousness. 00:25:50.440 --> 00:25:54.039 Let's close with this, the suppression of God's image, what do we do? 00:25:54.039 --> 00:25:55.039 What can we do? 00:25:55.039 --> 00:25:56.960 What can we do with this? 00:25:56.960 --> 00:26:01.600 The rest of the Bible, the rest of the Bible, the rest of human history is really just the 00:26:01.600 --> 00:26:07.240 story of how much we suppress the reality of who we are. 00:26:07.240 --> 00:26:12.640 Genesis chapter 11, Tower of Babel story, remember that they tried to build a great 00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:16.960 tower to get to the heavens to ultimately kill God. 00:26:16.960 --> 00:26:17.960 And what did they say? 00:26:17.960 --> 00:26:23.000 They said, we want to make a name for ourselves, the suppression of God's image. 00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:24.160 We don't want to be God's image. 00:26:24.160 --> 00:26:25.680 We want to be God. 00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:28.720 We back up to Genesis chapter three. 00:26:28.720 --> 00:26:34.799 And when the serpent came into the Garden of Eden and the serpent said to Eve with Adam 00:26:34.799 --> 00:26:39.799 standing right next to her, do you want to be like God? 00:26:39.799 --> 00:26:41.840 Do you want to be like God? 00:26:41.840 --> 00:26:45.080 What should Eve have said in that moment? 00:26:45.080 --> 00:26:46.440 I already am like God. 00:26:46.440 --> 00:26:47.759 I'm made in God's image. 00:26:47.759 --> 00:26:52.160 You know, I can't get any more like God than I am right now. 00:26:52.160 --> 00:26:54.360 But he said, you know, what did he mean? 00:26:54.359 --> 00:26:56.079 He meant you do want to be like God. 00:26:56.079 --> 00:26:58.279 Do you want to become God? 00:26:58.279 --> 00:27:03.479 And the suppression of the truth and unrighteousness for all of human history has been, I don't 00:27:03.479 --> 00:27:04.599 want to be God's image. 00:27:04.599 --> 00:27:08.319 I want to be the God who made me in his image. 00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:09.719 I want to trade places. 00:27:09.719 --> 00:27:12.679 I want God to be in my image. 00:27:12.679 --> 00:27:16.359 And so we craft idol after idol after idol, whether that's wood and stone or something 00:27:16.359 --> 00:27:18.240 else that we love more than him. 00:27:18.240 --> 00:27:19.839 And we flip it upside down. 00:27:19.839 --> 00:27:26.480 Colossians chapter one verses 18 is what Paul teaches us that this is the story of humanity. 00:27:26.480 --> 00:27:31.799 The Bible doesn't actually say very much about the image of God for the rest of the 00:27:31.799 --> 00:27:36.079 Bible until you get to Colossians chapter one. 00:27:36.079 --> 00:27:41.319 And when you get to the New Testament, to Colossians chapter one, it says in Colossians 00:27:41.319 --> 00:27:49.079 115, Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God. 00:27:49.079 --> 00:27:58.359 And right in that pronouncement, on the one hand, you've got Paul saying, Jesus is like 00:27:58.359 --> 00:27:59.359 you. 00:27:59.359 --> 00:28:01.839 You're made in God's image and he became a human. 00:28:01.839 --> 00:28:02.839 He's like you. 00:28:02.839 --> 00:28:06.720 You know, humanity existed long before Jesus was born. 00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:11.919 But on the other hand, on the other side of that, when it says he is the image, the image, 00:28:11.919 --> 00:28:15.960 there is something different between him and us. 00:28:15.960 --> 00:28:21.799 Here we talked about how an image can be an icon, an idol in the Old Testament. 00:28:21.799 --> 00:28:28.279 And the Greek word that's used for Jesus, the image is the icon of God, the very representation 00:28:28.279 --> 00:28:30.039 of God. 00:28:30.039 --> 00:28:33.160 We are God's image and likeness in one way. 00:28:33.160 --> 00:28:36.960 You might say, hey, I've heard this before. 00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:39.640 If you have children, you've probably heard this before. 00:28:39.640 --> 00:28:44.319 Your kids, you know, a dad, somebody looks at your son and says, your son is the spitting 00:28:44.319 --> 00:28:46.159 image of you. 00:28:46.159 --> 00:28:53.119 Or you look at a daughter and say, that little girl is the icon in Greek, the image of her 00:28:53.119 --> 00:28:54.119 mother. 00:28:54.119 --> 00:28:55.439 But what do we mean by that? 00:28:55.439 --> 00:29:00.919 We mean she looks like her, he looks like him, but we don't think that that little girl 00:29:00.919 --> 00:29:03.159 is her mother. 00:29:03.159 --> 00:29:05.039 They are two different people. 00:29:05.039 --> 00:29:09.439 In Genesis 1, 20, 6, 28, when it says you are in his image and his likeness, it says 00:29:09.439 --> 00:29:13.960 you are the spitting image, but you are not God. 00:29:13.960 --> 00:29:20.960 When you turn to Colossians chapter 1, verse 15, it says, but he is the image. 00:29:20.960 --> 00:29:25.319 He is the spitting image of you because he's human, but he is God. 00:29:25.319 --> 00:29:32.440 You see, the image is the one who has visibly made the invisible God known. 00:29:32.440 --> 00:29:34.200 He is the one, he's the real deal. 00:29:34.200 --> 00:29:38.600 And that's why the scandal of the gospel is such a scandal, and it really is a scandal. 00:29:38.600 --> 00:29:42.920 And here it is, the image of God, who is the maker of heaven and earth, came into this 00:29:42.920 --> 00:29:45.960 world to be marred. 00:29:45.960 --> 00:29:50.960 The image, God himself, become human, he was marred. 00:29:50.960 --> 00:29:57.920 We have marred, scratched, cut the image of God in us by not imaging God in all the ways 00:29:57.920 --> 00:29:58.920 we're called to. 00:29:58.920 --> 00:30:04.320 We've suppressed it, but boy, not like what happened to him at the cross. 00:30:04.320 --> 00:30:10.240 He took on the fact that we suppressed the image and injustice, and he swallowed that. 00:30:10.240 --> 00:30:17.000 And so Jesus Christ, he, the image itself, boy, he was erased. 00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:21.279 Even more than that, the very next verse in Colossians 1 says, he upholds the universe 00:30:21.279 --> 00:30:24.200 by his voice, by the word of his power. 00:30:24.200 --> 00:30:28.640 And then you learn that in Genesis 1, the very voice of the Lord that goes forth to 00:30:28.640 --> 00:30:34.779 make the world is not just sound, it is the Son of God himself. 00:30:34.779 --> 00:30:36.480 He is the voice. 00:30:36.480 --> 00:30:41.480 He is the one who goes forth into the world to mediate, to make possible creation. 00:30:41.480 --> 00:30:46.039 But when he comes into the world to make possible redemption, the voice of God, the speech of 00:30:46.039 --> 00:30:50.079 God to us, he was silenced. 00:30:50.079 --> 00:30:55.480 He hung on the cross, the word silenced, the word hearing no voice from the Father, not 00:30:55.480 --> 00:30:56.480 at all. 00:30:56.480 --> 00:30:57.680 He was cut off. 00:30:57.680 --> 00:31:05.720 The image of God marred, the voice of God silenced, all so that we could be remade to become 00:31:05.720 --> 00:31:09.519 true humanity, the image of God fully and finally in forever. 00:31:09.519 --> 00:31:13.000 Now, let me close finally with this. 00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:16.400 Some of us today, all of us today, what can you do with this? 00:31:16.400 --> 00:31:19.519 We need to come and repent. 00:31:19.519 --> 00:31:25.240 Repent in our lives for all the ways we have suppressed who we are. 00:31:25.240 --> 00:31:27.720 Every single one of us needs that in some way, shape, or form. 00:31:27.720 --> 00:31:34.480 But some of us need to come today, perhaps, and for the first time, confess that we have 00:31:34.480 --> 00:31:37.440 neglected, rejected, suppressed who we are. 00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:42.120 We need to repent, confess, look to Jesus and come and say, I want to profess for the first 00:31:42.120 --> 00:31:45.519 time God made me. 00:31:45.519 --> 00:31:47.240 And come and be baptized. 00:31:47.240 --> 00:31:54.360 You might be at that place today where the next step for you is to repent and be baptized. 00:31:54.360 --> 00:31:59.000 And the rest of us, all of us today, need some form of repentance for the ways that even 00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:06.160 as Christians, we're still suppressing who we are and unrighteousness. 00:32:06.160 --> 00:32:07.880 We drift, we're modern people. 00:32:07.880 --> 00:32:11.359 GK Chesterton captured this so well at the end of his life. 00:32:11.359 --> 00:32:16.319 He talked about in the early 20th century when he was writing, he talked about a modern 00:32:16.319 --> 00:32:24.519 man, he said, who will denounce the policeman for killing a peasant, treating a peasant 00:32:24.519 --> 00:32:26.359 like a beast. 00:32:26.359 --> 00:32:31.799 And he said, and then he will turn around and prove by the highest philosophical principle 00:32:31.799 --> 00:32:35.199 that the peasant ought to have killed himself. 00:32:35.199 --> 00:32:40.519 He says, in other words, the man of this school goes first to a political meeting to complain 00:32:40.519 --> 00:32:45.559 of how the savages are being treated in a colonial era, that they're being treated like 00:32:45.559 --> 00:32:46.559 beast. 00:32:46.559 --> 00:32:51.639 And then he turns, takes his hat, his umbrella, to go to a scientific meeting where he decides, 00:32:51.639 --> 00:32:56.319 he decides scientifically, actually, we are all savages and beasts. 00:32:56.319 --> 00:32:59.079 You see the contradiction of modernity? 00:32:59.079 --> 00:33:03.639 On the one hand, we walk around in the street saying, we're all just beasts, savages, just 00:33:03.639 --> 00:33:06.639 a little bit more mutated than the apes. 00:33:06.639 --> 00:33:12.679 On the other hand, we say, but the United Nations has declared we have 39 rights. 00:33:12.679 --> 00:33:18.879 We say, humans are beast, humans are precious, we walk in a world of utter contradiction. 00:33:18.879 --> 00:33:21.519 God made you. 00:33:21.519 --> 00:33:23.240 God knows you. 00:33:23.240 --> 00:33:24.759 God loves you. 00:33:24.759 --> 00:33:30.039 In Jesus Christ, he became the image to redeem you as his image. 00:33:30.039 --> 00:33:34.559 God loves every single person, and he wants you to come to him. 00:33:34.559 --> 00:33:35.559 Will you come? 00:33:35.559 --> 00:33:37.440 Let us pray. 00:33:37.440 --> 00:33:44.480 Father, we give you thanks that whether we have high self-esteem today or low self-esteem, 00:33:44.480 --> 00:33:47.680 the same answer is what we need. 00:33:47.680 --> 00:33:51.000 You made us in your image, you know us, you love us. 00:33:51.000 --> 00:33:56.160 So we repent, we confess this morning that we try to be self-made people, we can't do 00:33:56.160 --> 00:33:58.359 it. 00:33:58.359 --> 00:34:03.799 And so Lord, I pray that you would break our hearts and then remake our hearts. 00:34:03.799 --> 00:34:07.440 Born again in the image of the sun. 00:34:07.440 --> 00:34:11.199 Thank you, Lord Jesus, for giving everything for us. 00:34:11.199 --> 00:34:16.480 And we pray that we would be renewed to long to leave this place walking not only as your 00:34:16.480 --> 00:34:24.400 image but behaving, living, worshiping, growing to image you into this world. 00:34:24.400 --> 00:34:25.400 And we pray that in Jesus' name. 00:34:25.400 --> 00:34:46.400 Amen.