Well, I thought we would open tonight with a question, and that question is this.
What does it mean to be human?
What does it mean to be a human being?
Related to that, what does it mean to be a person?
I was thinking about that question over the last few weeks, and looking around at the
ways different people have answered it, I recognized or read about the Bill Gates Foundation,
which gives money to this organization called the Big History Project.
You've probably heard of it.
Gates co-founded it, and they've actually done, over the course of this year, a video competition
where you could submit a video, 60 to 90 second video, answering this very question.
What does it mean to be human?
And they got all kinds of submissions from all different kinds of people.
They offered cash prizes, and so there were a lot of submissions, and it's kind of fun
to flip through and look at the different ways that people have attempted to answer this
question.
It tells you a lot about how we are thinking in 2015, in our country, about what it means
to be human.
It's kind of a nice sample of where people are at with this question, and, you know, Gates
himself recused himself from the competition, of course, but he did submit a video, and his
answer is essentially that what makes us human, and thus different from the animals, is that
we have developed the capacity to pass knowledge to the next generation.
And it's this cumulative increase in knowledge over time that sets us apart.
The winning submissions were various in how they approached this question.
One person talks about the circle of compassion, the fact that human beings are capable of
having compassion for all creatures, not just other human beings.
I thought that was a very optimistic view of human beings.
I love that vision of humanity.
Other submissions were very different.
One person said he didn't think there was much, if anything, that made humans different
from animals at all.
He said essentially that what the difference is, is that humans are people, but that he
didn't really define what people are, or what constitutes a person.
But he won some money, so I suppose that must have been a better answer than some of the other
ones that were submitted.
There were lots of different ways at approaching this question.
What becomes clear when you look at these videos is there's an enormous amount of disagreement
over what it means to be human.
We can't really seem to achieve any kind of consensus.
Which is very interesting considering that this question and our beliefs about how we answer
this question literally undergird everything else.
Everything flows from how we answer this question.
How we treat other people is directly related to what it means to be a human being.
Who do we consider to be people?
Who merits the status of human or person?
Is there some line of demarcation?
And will we ever extend that to animals?
Will we extend that to artificial intelligence?
It's here.
Eventually we will have to decide.
Do we confer the status and the rights of personhood on an artificially intelligent being?
These are the questions that our generation is attempting to answer.
It all comes back to what does it mean to be a human being?
What do we desire to become in our lives?
What's your aspiration?
What are you hoping to be in 20 years or 30 years?
Should God willing you live that long?
Well, what does it mean to be a human being?
Wouldn't you hope that after 30 years you're more human than you are now, if anything?
How we approach everything from education to poverty to politics to sexuality to identity.
It all flows out of this question.
And yet there's very little agreement on what it means to be a human being.
So this question is a part of our series that we're looking at Genesis, the opening chapters,
and we're asking foundational questions.
And so this is our question for tonight.
Few could be bigger than this.
And we're going to look at this question in two parts.
And, you know, we could look at it in 20 parts if we wanted to.
But tonight is part one of trying to answer this question of what does it mean to be human.
And we're looking at Genesis chapter 1, verses 26 to 31.
And we're going to get started tonight by looking first at the fact that we're made to reflect the image of God.
And then we're going to look at, after we look at what that means,
we're going to look at the three implications of that for us to consider in our time today.
I will say this probably will get a little more political than is typical here at Advent.
And that's not out of an attempt to be political.
We try to avoid the culture war as much as possible here.
We don't toe any party line here.
We have people on both sides of the issue, whatever that issue is,
probably sitting in the pews right now.
So it's not about that.
It's just about the fact that this question has inherently political implications.
And so to try to avoid that would be dishonest.
But that being said, I think we'll see that the implications cut straight through party lines.
So let's pray for the Lord to help us and then we'll get started.
Lord, we come to you with this question because we recognize that you're the one who made us.
And our hope is that through your word we would come to discover who we are and what we are created to be.
And we know that there is no better being to ask than our own author, the one who made us.
So Lord, would you speak to us through your word tonight because of your son Jesus.
Amen.
So the first thing we want to do is just look at this passage and particularly this verse,
this opening verse, and consider what it means.
It says,
Then God said,
Let us make man in our image after our likeness.
Now next week we're going to consider the plural there, the us, the our,
and what that says about human beings and the fact that we were created for relationships.
But tonight our focus is on this word, image.
Likeness.
The word there for image is the Hebrew word, salem.
Salem.
And salem is a fascinating word.
In the ancient Near East, it was inconceivable to have a temple, or rather it was inconceivable
to have a god without a temple.
And it was inconceivable to have a temple without a god.
In other words, temples were the dwelling places of gods and goddesses.
And a typical ancient Near Eastern temple would be a building and you would go into that building
and you believed that god lived there.
And in the middle of that building, at the place of the focal point of attention,
would be the salem.
The idol.
The representation of the god.
And so you would go in and to worship or to do commerce or to have some kind of exchange with this deity,
you would go into that deity's temple and go to the salem.
And when we say idol or representation, it's not necessarily a physical resemblance we're talking about.
John Walton, the Old Testament scholar, says,
The image, the tzalem, is a physical manifestation of divine essence that bears the function of that which it represents.
So he says,
This gives the image bearer the capacity to reflect the attributes of the one represented and act on his behalf.
So that's a tzalem.
That's an ancient Near Eastern temple.
Now Walton, when he's looking at the creation story in Genesis,
he helps us to understand that when we're reading this story,
what we're really seeing is not just that there is a god who's creating heavens and earth and all of this stuff,
but that there's a purpose for creation.
And that purpose is this.
God is building a temple.
And you say,
Well, where's that temple?
It's everywhere.
Everywhere.
The heavens and the earth, the mountains, the fields, the grass, the trees, the rivers, the oceans, the valleys.
It's all the temple.
That all of creation is this cosmic temple.
Which begs the question,
Well, if all of creation is the temple, then where is the idol, the image, the tzalem?
And the Bible would say,
Well, you're looking.
You're looking at it.
That every person in the pews here,
every person, every man, woman, and child in creation is the tzalem of God,
the image bearer of God.
Not necessarily in physical resemblance,
although that's a whole entirely different sermon.
But just what Walton says,
The capacity to reflect the attributes of the one represented.
So when we talk about human beings bearing God's image,
there are essential aspects of God that are embodied and reflected in human beings,
in you and in me.
Each and every human being reflects God's likeness or God's essence.
And so when you think about that statement,
you've got to realize that the implications are vast for what this means.
They're vast.
We can't even begin to consider all of them.
I do want to consider three implications of the fact that we bear God's image
and represent God's essence.
Simply by being human.
Simply by who you are.
You do this.
So the three implications I want to look at are this.
The nature of human life,
the sanctity of human life,
and the dignity of human life.
So first, the nature of human life.
When we talk about nature,
we talk about what essentially defines you.
What defines you.
And we need to think,
what does this tell us about the nature of being a human being?
Most people, when they think about human nature,
they think about, and they think about the world,
they think in what you might call dualistic terms.
They think that there's the material,
and there's the spiritual.
And that a human being, I'm a body,
and I can choose to do spiritual things,
or to not do spiritual things.
Some things I do, like coming and sitting at Church of the Advent,
that's a spiritual thing.
But when I go ride my bike,
or when I go for a walk,
or when I go shopping at the store,
or hang out and watch TV,
that's not a spiritual thing.
We think in terms of external definitions,
and context.
And we think of ourselves as being a body,
maybe with a soul,
or maybe if you,
a related view is to say,
I'm a body with a soul and a mind,
or a body and a heart and a mind.
There's lots of different ways that we define this.
Now, we use a lot of this language kind of,
to express things as euphemisms,
to try to get across concepts.
Psychologists use this kind of language a lot.
But the Bible actually says that they are one.
In other words,
there's no such thing as the material and the spiritual,
that material and spiritual are the same
when you're talking about a human being.
When you're talking about a human being.
So it says,
human beings are not like the animals,
created each to their own kind,
which it says earlier in Genesis.
That human beings are not merely a body with a soul.
We're not a body with a soul.
We're not a soul trapped in a body,
hoping to escape.
That human beings are,
that you are a body soul.
You're a body soul.
One.
A union of essences,
spiritual and material,
as one.
And where do you see this most clearly?
In Jesus himself.
Right?
When Jesus was born,
he was fully divine
and fully human.
When Jesus lived and worked as a carpenter,
he was fully divine and fully human.
When Jesus taught in the synagogues
and on the streets,
when he slept in the alleys,
when he put his head on the rocks,
right?
When he was spit on,
when he was yelled at,
he was doing so as both fully human
and fully divine.
When he died,
he was fully human and fully divine.
When he rose from death,
he was fully human and fully divine.
He was both at the same time.
There wasn't a part of him
that was material
and part that was spiritual.
It wasn't half and half.
It's not 50-50.
100% divine,
100% human.
They make special emphasis of this
in the resurrection,
that he still had the holes in his hands,
that he still had the wound in his side,
that he still got hungry,
that he wanted to eat broiled fish.
These are details that tell us
this isn't just a spiritual image of Jesus.
This is Jesus' flesh and blood
and spirit as one.
And in 1 Corinthians 15,
Paul actually says the same will be true of us.
These bodies,
in some glorified way,
now maybe you think that's great,
maybe you look at your body
and you say,
well, that's kind of a bummer.
In some glorified way
that makes sense,
that's amazing and beautiful,
these bodies are designed for eternity.
The eternal life is a physical, material life.
So we're not souls with a body,
we are body souls
and we need to understand
the implications of this,
what this means for us.
What this means is simply this,
everything we do
is both physical and spiritual
as human beings.
This isn't something
that is true for animals,
it's not true about rocks,
but it's true about human beings.
Everything you do
is spiritual and physical.
So your diet and your exercise,
the way you take care of
or don't take care of your body,
that's a spiritual thing
as well as a physical.
Right?
When you eat well,
that's a spiritual choice
that you're making.
Right?
When you eat junk,
that's a spiritual choice.
When you go for a run,
when you bike,
those are spiritual things
that you're doing.
They're inherently so.
This is also the foundation
for how we think about sex and intimacy.
Right?
Paul picks this up
in the New Testament
and this is really the root
of the entire Christian understanding
of sexual ethics.
And this is why Paul
at several places
makes such a strong connection
between sexual immorality
and idolatry.
Because what we do
with our bodies
is spiritual.
It has spiritual ramifications.
So you can't put yourself
in a spiritual mode
and meditate
or go to church
or do yoga
or read a self-help book
or something spiritual
and then you cut that off
and you go
and you do something
with your body
or to your body
with somebody else
and think that that doesn't have
any connection
to your spiritual life.
The break there
is only something
that we're doing in our mind.
It doesn't represent reality.
There's a continuity
between all of it.
Because we're body souls.
Lastly,
this influences
the way we worship.
Right?
Especially here in this church
when we raise our hands
when we're singing,
that's not just about enthusiasm.
Right?
There's like two of us
that raise our hands
when we worship.
For those two,
for those two,
it's not just
because you're enthusiastic.
Right?
Now, you are enthusiastic.
That's great.
But it's not about that.
When we kneel,
it's not just about
the pretense
of a contrite heart.
Right?
What we're doing
when we raise our hands
when we praise
and when we kneel
when we confess our sin.
Right?
When we extend our hands
like this
to receive the body and blood.
When we hold our hands
out like this
when somebody's praying.
What we're doing there
is we're making
our body
congruent with our soul.
We're making them
congruent.
We're saying,
my soul is praising God.
I want my body
to be congruent with that.
My soul,
my heart,
is broken over my sin.
I want my body
to be congruent with that.
And if you don't understand
the power of this,
just try it.
Try confessing,
standing with your hands
in your pockets
or leaning up
against the wall
and then try getting down
on your face
and confessing.
And tell me
if there's a difference.
Tell me what it feels like
when your body
and your soul
are congruent
rather than being
incongruent.
So the first thing
that we see
is that we are
body souls.
This is an implication
of the fact
that we're created
in the image
of a God
who,
when He made Himself
known to the world,
came as a divine
human being.
So bearing God's image
means something
about our nature.
We're not merely animals.
We're not merely spirit.
We're body souls.
The second implication
of bearing God's image
is this,
that there is a sacredness
to human life.
the word that we
often hear
is the word sanctity.
There's a sanctity
to human life.
Every human life
is sacred
simply by virtue
of being human
because it represents
and reflects God
in ways that
no other creature does.
So that image exists
in every human being.
It's passed
from parent to child.
And there's no point
at which you begin
to bear God's image.
It's not just
the good people.
It's not just people
of a certain age.
It's everybody
bears God's image
to every human being.
So what this means
is what?
There's no such thing
as three-fifths
of a person.
Right?
Like our forefathers said
back in the late 1700s,
the three-fifths
compromise.
How do you deal
with slaves?
How do you figure them
into the population?
Well, you count them
as three-fifths
of a person.
It's very easy,
a lot easier
to justify
chattel slavery
where you consider
another human being
to be your property
if that isn't
a human being
but rather just
three-fifths
of a human being.
Right?
This would say
absolutely not.
That person bears
the image of God.
They're a person,
not a fraction.
In Stalinist Russia
in 1937,
something happened
called the Great Terror.
And the Great Terror
was essentially
the government
either executed
or imprisoned
close to half
a million people.
And you think about
somebody doing this
in their own country.
How do you execute
or imprison
half a million people
and get away with it?
And it's because
the government
had created
a category
years ago,
the category
of former person.
So some people
went from being
persons
to being former persons.
This was conveniently
a very broad definition.
Anyone who obstructed,
anyone who got in the way,
anyone who was educated enough
to question
what the government
was doing,
anyone who owned land
or was wealthy enough
to push against
the socialist regime,
anybody that,
anybody that in any way
was an obstacle
to the agenda
that the government
was putting forward
was categorized
as a former person.
So it's a very intentional
way to do what?
To make sure
that empathy,
that public empathy,
doesn't get in the way.
Because empathy
is really problematic
if you're shipping
people off
to a labor camp
or shooting them
in the street.
You want people
to look the other way
and so what do you do?
You say,
well this isn't a person,
it's a former person.
Oh,
in that case.
So you have a government
that deals with people
who are inconveniently
standing in the way
of the agenda
by removing their status
as human beings
and then killing them
and you think
it's unbelievable
that anyone
could let this happen.
It's still happening.
It's still happening today.
It's still happening
in our country.
Roughly 3,000 deaths
per day
in our country
which is like 9-11
every day.
But again,
we don't use the word
human beings
to describe these people.
They're unwanted pregnancies.
You know,
it sounds more
like a medical condition
when you put it that way.
It sounds like
an illness
that needs to be cured.
And it helps us
deal with the whole
empathy problem.
It helps us
to look the other way
and to flip to the next story
in our news feed.
Now,
you know,
I know when I bring this up
it makes you recoil.
Most people
who come to this church
come to the church
because they're trying
to get away from
the culture war
and now you're thinking
what's happening?
What's happening?
Why are we talking
about this?
And there's a lot
of anxiety
and rightly so
because the culture war
is mind-numbing.
Nobody wants
to get into that.
Some of us
instinctively hate that.
Some of us,
I know a fair number
of us,
have had abortions.
And so this comes up
and immediately
your walls come up
and you just want
to shut it all out
and go to the bathroom
and just not come back.
And I understand that
and I want to address
that this way
and basically say
there's no thing
that we've done,
there's no act,
there's no choice,
there's no thought
that is more powerful
than the cross of Christ.
There's nothing
that we can do
that is more powerful
than that.
And so because of that
at the foot of the cross
there is no place
for shame.
There's no place
for guilt.
They don't belong there.
They don't exist there.
They can't
because of the cross.
There's so much
abundant grace
and mercy there.
There's no place
for shame and guilt.
There is only the hope
of the newness of life
that comes
when we fall before Christ.
And we know it is ours
for the taking.
So that's not
what this is about.
This is not about shame.
But here's what it's about.
We cannot talk about
the sanctity of human life
without talking about
this issue in our culture.
It would be criminally negligent
to do that.
And here's the thing.
Even if you're not a believer
and some of you
are not believers
and some of you maybe are
and maybe you have
very different thinking on this.
And again,
that's a great thing
about Advent, right?
But even if you're not a believer,
even if you believe
there's no God,
the science compels us
to talk about this.
You know,
since Roe versus Wade,
there have been more than
58 million abortions
in our country.
58 million.
Since then,
that was a long time ago,
we've learned a lot
about what goes on
in the womb.
For instance,
we didn't used to have,
when Roe versus Wade was passed,
we didn't used to have
3D sonograms.
Right?
So we couldn't see
the face
of an 8-week-old child
smiling at us.
We couldn't see that
years ago.
We just didn't have
the technology.
We couldn't see a child
at 8 weeks
sucking their thumb.
We weren't even sure
if they had thumbs,
much less thought
to do anything with them.
They do.
But we couldn't see that.
Right?
We couldn't see that
a child at 8 weeks,
when the doctors go in
with a needle
to try to extract fluid,
that the child,
if that needle touches
the child,
that the child will actually
at 8 weeks
instinctively recoil
and get away from the needle
because that child
can feel pain.
We didn't know that
back then.
Science has told us
that now.
We're learning
things like this.
And yet,
right now,
95% of abortion providers
will perform an abortion
at 8 weeks.
So now,
I know that there are
situations of rape,
horrible situations,
incredibly complicated,
1% of those situations.
Right?
1% of abortions
due to those situations.
And that's an unspeakably
horrible,
an unspeakably complex
situation.
Right?
And I know for a lot of people,
you know,
the health of the mother
is of some concern.
Very complicated issue there.
12% of abortions.
Health of the mother
is a concern.
But statistically speaking,
the majority of abortions,
the vast majority
of abortions
that are performed
every year
are not because
of these issues.
They're primarily
for convenience.
I wasn't ready
to have another one yet.
I thought it would
interfere too much
with my work.
I thought it would
interfere...
interfere too much
with where I'm hoping
to go in my job.
I thought it would
interfere too much
with where our family is
and the lifestyle
that we've gotten used to.
I thought it would be
too hard and demanding.
I'm having some marital issues
with my spouse
and I'm not sure
if we're ready
to add that
to our plate.
These kinds of issues,
the vast majority.
And we're lying
to ourselves
if we think
this is primarily
a medical issue.
It's about the exaltation
of the self.
It's about,
I'm going to do
my life my way.
Don't get in my way.
So when we think
about this,
we look at
Stalinist Russia
and anybody
who gets in the way,
they label
a former person
and they do away
with him.
How are we
any different?
Now I know
some of you
are hearing this.
You're writing
all of this off
even as I say it.
The walls are up
and you're saying,
well this is just
another conservative
and this is just
another pro-life rant
and that's not me
and that's not
what I'm about
and there's lots
of things
that aren't being said
and so I'm just
going to shut this out.
I'm glad you're here.
But I'll tell you
something.
I'm not pro-life.
I'm not pro-choice.
I'm a follower
of Jesus Christ.
Okay, I'm not
a pro-lifer.
I'm not a pro-choicer.
I'm a Christian.
It's not enough
for you to claim a camp.
It's not enough
for you to say
I'm just pro-life
and this is what I think
and we need to take
Planned Parenthood out
and that's the solution.
It's not enough
for you to say
I'm pro-choice
and I disagree with all that
and these are more complicated
and I'm for the rights
of the woman
and I think that's more important.
It's not enough
to claim a camp.
Frankly, it's lazy.
But here it's dangerous.
Why?
Because our culture
has created
a false dichotomy.
A false dichotomy.
You're either
for the rights
of the child
to survive
or you're for
the rights
of the mother
to choose
and you have to decide.
You're either
going to fight
the war on women
or you're going to fight
the war on the unborn.
You have to choose.
And as Christians,
listen friends,
we don't get the luxury
of choosing.
Our faith,
our God,
our Savior
doesn't let us
off that easy.
We can't just pick a side
and check a box
and be done
because when we look
at this
we see what's really happening.
Do you know
what's really happening?
Our culture,
our culture
has pitted
the widow
against the orphan.
It's pitted
the widow
against the orphan.
We're told
to choose.
Do you fight
for the rights
of the child?
I pick the orphan.
An orphan
in the biblical time
is just any
unwanted child.
Born or unborn,
unwanted
makes you an orphan.
Parentless
makes you an orphan.
And you either say
I choose
to support
the orphan
but I do so
knowing that
there are a lot
of women out there
primarily,
primarily
single women.
The vast majority
primarily
African American women,
women of color
are still
five times
more likely
to get an abortion.
The vast majority
of,
or the majority
of aborted children
in our country
are African American
babies.
Babies of color.
So you say
black lives matter?
Yes,
including unborn
black lives.
They all matter.
So you choose,
you know,
you choose the orphan
and you say
well I'm going to
choose the orphan
but I know
that it's going to
take people
who are impoverished
and don't have
education
because they can't
go to school
because they're
caring for multiple
kids
and it's going to
add another
kid on there.
It's going to
maybe make them
more poor.
It's going to
make them
more vulnerable.
It's going to
make their life
that much harder.
It's going to
make them
more vulnerable
to exploitation
and you're going
to do that
because of a baby?
Because of a fetus?
Or you say
okay well I
choose the widow.
A widow in the
Bible is just
a vulnerable woman.
Right?
A widow in the
biblical times
was the most
vulnerable person
there was.
Somebody who has
no power,
no resources,
no rights.
That's a widow.
And you say
well I choose
the widow and
I'm going to
fight for the
widow but at
the expense
of what?
Countless
image bearing
human beings
lost.
When I read
James 1 27
I don't see
that we have
a choice.
Religion that
is pure and
undefiled before
God the Father
is this to care
for orphans
and widows
in their affliction.
To care for
orphans and
widows.
Both.
It's not one or
the other.
It's both.
And unless
we're doing
both it's
insufficient.
It's
insufficient.
Amen.
Unwanted
children,
vulnerable
women,
orphans,
widows.
What does
this mean
friends,
Christians?
We need
to be involved
at every
stage.
At every
stage.
church.
You can't
just rant
against
Planned
Parenthood.
We've got
to be doing
everything we
can as
Christians,
as a
community,
to love and
to support and
care for the
single moms.
We need to be
doing everything
we can to
resource,
to make our
community the
kind of place
where, as it
was in the
early church,
a widow with
children that
she couldn't
care for on
her own could
come in and
know that her
needs would be
met there,
that they would
be her family.
We need to
be doing
everything we
can in the
area of
prevention,
preventing unwanted
pregnancies from
occurring.
We need to be
doing everything
we can in the
areas of foster
care and
adoption.
We need to be
doing everything
at all levels
to make sure
that we are
holistically caring
for both the
widow and the
orphan.
Nothing less
will do,
and we
shouldn't stop.
We cannot
stop until the
number of
abortions in our
country is
zero.
Nobody that I
know likes the
idea of abortion.
The most
staunch pro-choice
person doesn't
love the idea of
abortion.
Maybe some
people are out
there, maybe
they do exist.
I don't know
anybody like
that.
We probably
wouldn't get
along very
well.
But we
cannot stop
until the
rate of
abortions is
zero.
Because if
we're made in
the image of
God and every
life is sacred,
this needs to
radically impact
how we think
about everything
from slavery to
abortion to the
death penalty to
euthanasia,
everything.
The last
point I'll
make is this,
and it's very
short.
It's not
enough just to
talk about this
from a rights
perspective.
The third and
final implication
is simply this,
that by virtue of
the fact that we're
human beings,
not only does that
speak to our
nature and to the
sanctity of human
life, but it
speaks to human
dignity.
Human dignity.
Bearing God's
image confers a
basic, undeniable
dignity to human
life.
Every human
being bears God's
image, and
although it's
become distorted
in us, it's
still there, but
we cannot deny
the worth of
every human
being in every
human life.
What this means
is simply this,
that Christians
should be the
greatest champions
of human dignity
in the world.
The greatest
champions of
human dignity.
A lot of you
are here because
you care about
rights.
A lot of you
are here because
you fight for
rights for other
people who don't
have them.
That's amazing.
Christians need to
be doing that.
And a lot of you
are passionate
about that.
But here's the
thing.
You cannot have
human rights
without human
dignity.
The whole concept
of human rights
flows from the
belief of the
inherent worth and
dignity of a
human being.
Where does that
come from?
The belief that
that human being
is created in the
image of God.
Because we as
Christians believe
this, we should
strive to protect
the dignity, the
inherent worth of
every human life.
And I'll put it
this way.
Rights are not
enough.
Rights are not
enough.
Right?
Fighting for the
rights of minorities
to work is
necessary, but it's
not sufficient.
Fighting to ensure
that women are paid
as much as men
equally, that's
necessary.
Christians need to
be doing that, but
that's not sufficient.
Right?
Fighting to make sure
people are not
discriminated against
based on color or
gender or sexual
orientation or
religion, that's
necessary.
Christians should be
doing that, but it's
not sufficient.
Christians should
not only lead the
change in all of
these areas, we
should go way
beyond it, way
beyond it.
And here's why.
Rights are
medicine, but
they're not food.
Rights can protect
you against harm and
discrimination, but
they're not generative.
They don't build you
up.
They don't create
something in you
that's more than
there was before, but
guess what?
Dignity can.
Rights don't make you
more human, they just
try to prevent you
from becoming less
human.
But dignity can make
a person more human.
Dignity is humanizing.
It has the power to
humanize people, to
remind them that they
are more than meat,
more than cosmic
accidents, to remind
them that they have an
inherent worth.
So as Christians, we
more than anyone else
should strive to ensure
that everyone is
treated not only in a
way that upholds their
rights, but with
dignity and the
respect that they
deserve simply by
virtue of being human
beings.
So we've got to close
here.
I told you there was
two parts to this, and
this has been the
first part.
I'll just end by saying
this.
What does it mean to be
human?
For starters, it means
that we're created in
the image of God, which
means in our nature we
are body souls.
Everything that we do is
not only physical but
spiritual.
It also means that there
is a sanctity to human
life that Christians need
to be fighting for at
every level within every
issue.
And lastly, it means that
there is a dignity within
every human being that
cannot be taken away.
There is a worth, and as
Christians, we need to
recognize that and fight
for it wherever we see
that that is threatened.
And if you ever were
tempted to doubt in the
value and the worth of a
human being, you need only
look at Jesus, who when he
looks at you, sees someone
who is so incalculably
valuable that it was worth
him giving up everything to
have you for eternity.
Let's pray.
Our Lord and Heavenly Father,
we recognize that as we
delve into this, it raises
all kinds of things.
And in many of us, there may
be struggle or wrestling
happening right now.
We pray that whatever is not
of your truth and your word
and your grace and your love
would be stricken from
memory.
We pray that whatever it is
that you are desiring to
tell us, that we would hear
it loud and clear.
that we would fall into
open and fertile hearts.
And that you would deepen
our understanding of what
it means to be created in
your image.
And that we would see that
not only in ourselves, but
in all people.
And we pray this in your
son's holy name.
Amen.