WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:11.540 Good morning to all of you. My name is Tommy. I'm a pastor here at Church of the Advent. 00:00:11.839 --> 00:00:16.280 I'm hoping that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I'm really glad for those of you who are 00:00:16.280 --> 00:00:20.960 visiting from out of town. Maybe you came in town to celebrate Thanksgiving with family, 00:00:21.179 --> 00:00:25.980 and I'm glad that you're here this morning. We're in a series that we started a couple 00:00:25.980 --> 00:00:31.519 of weeks ago. We wanted to get a head start on Advent. We love Church of the Advent, the 00:00:31.519 --> 00:00:37.679 season of Advent. Our name reflects that, but also it's a series that I think is worth a lot of time, 00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:42.659 and so we wanted more than four weeks to get into it, but it's really our Advent series. 00:00:43.460 --> 00:00:51.179 And this is a series that is called This Is My Body, and it's a series about embodiment. 00:00:51.179 --> 00:00:58.159 But we're asking the question, what do our bodies mean, and what do our bodies have to teach us 00:00:58.159 --> 00:01:04.939 about what it means to be human beings, our identity, our purpose in the world? Are our bodies central 00:01:04.939 --> 00:01:14.239 to our humanness, or are they peripheral, secondary, and how should we think about all that? So that's 00:01:14.239 --> 00:01:19.260 the series. Some of you have asked over the last couple of weeks why we chose this particular topic. 00:01:19.260 --> 00:01:26.620 I would say this by way of an answer. I think that it's not an exaggeration to say that this may be 00:01:26.620 --> 00:01:34.040 one of the most important questions of our age. The question of human identity and purpose, 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:42.420 and in particular the role that our bodies play in our identity as human beings. There seems to be an 00:01:42.420 --> 00:01:49.219 enormous amount of disagreement over how to answer these questions, which is noteworthy considering that 00:01:49.219 --> 00:01:56.159 our answer to this question shapes just about everything else in our lives and in our society. 00:01:56.579 --> 00:02:02.640 How do we think about ourselves and our identity? How should we treat other people, particularly 00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:09.219 people who are different from us or who believe differently than we do? Whom do we consider to be 00:02:09.219 --> 00:02:18.960 people in the first place? How do we approach things like human rights or education or poverty or 00:02:18.960 --> 00:02:25.539 politics, right? It all starts here with human identity and purpose and the role our bodies play 00:02:25.539 --> 00:02:31.460 in that. And so this morning we're going to take a stab at beginning to try to answer these questions by 00:02:31.460 --> 00:02:37.939 looking at Scripture. And I think that the theme this morning is every bit as important as the question 00:02:37.939 --> 00:02:46.819 itself. We're looking at Genesis chapter 1, in particular verse 26, then God said, let us make man in our 00:02:46.819 --> 00:02:55.280 image after our likeness. The topic this morning is the fact that human beings are made in God's image 00:02:55.280 --> 00:03:02.520 likeness. Whether or not you consider yourselves to be Christians, and I think there are some people 00:03:02.520 --> 00:03:08.139 here who are not sure what you believe, and again, we are delighted that you're here. I think that you're 00:03:08.139 --> 00:03:16.479 in the right place, and hopefully some of your questions or concerns will be addressed this morning. But whether 00:03:16.479 --> 00:03:22.719 or not you consider yourself to be a Christian, chances are you have been profoundly shaped by this idea, that 00:03:22.719 --> 00:03:28.759 human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. Frankly, that's because life in Western 00:03:28.759 --> 00:03:38.900 civilization would be inexplicable apart from this idea. It is a pillar of how we think and live in 00:03:38.900 --> 00:03:46.400 Western civilization. But as important and central as it is to our way of life, what does it mean? A lot of 00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:51.419 people don't know what it means. There's a lot of confusion. And then why does it matter? So these are our two 00:03:51.419 --> 00:03:57.239 questions this morning. We are created in God's image and likeness. What does that mean? And then why does 00:03:57.239 --> 00:04:04.119 it matter? Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for gathering us together this 00:04:04.119 --> 00:04:11.139 morning. We're here at your invitation. And you're not a silent God, as Scripture says. You're not deaf, 00:04:11.259 --> 00:04:17.300 dumb, mute. You're not made of wood or stone or metal. You're a living God who speaks to your people, 00:04:17.300 --> 00:04:22.240 who dwells in the midst of your people. We pray that you would speak to us this morning, Lord, 00:04:22.920 --> 00:04:27.480 that we might be transformed by the same word that created the heavens and the earth. 00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:34.139 Recreate and renew us, Lord, for your glory. We pray this in your Son's holy name. Amen. 00:04:35.519 --> 00:04:40.420 So first of all, let me give you a little context to Genesis chapter 1, very well-known chapter in the 00:04:40.420 --> 00:04:47.340 Bible. It's the first chapter in the Bible. Genesis chapter 1, verse 1 through chapter 2, verse 4 gives 00:04:47.340 --> 00:04:55.160 us a theological account of the creation event. So it's not a science text. It was not written to 00:04:55.160 --> 00:05:00.060 explain how the world came to be. It was written to answer the far deeper question of why the world 00:05:00.060 --> 00:05:09.139 came to be, why we came to be. And it has this structured symmetrical order to it. And it looks a lot 00:05:09.139 --> 00:05:16.159 like a liturgy. For those of us who worship with liturgy, you look at the original text and it looks 00:05:16.159 --> 00:05:23.459 a whole lot like a liturgy. Which is why many scholars believe that this was actually originally 00:05:23.459 --> 00:05:31.219 written to be used in public gathered worship. And in this liturgy of creation, the creation event is 00:05:31.219 --> 00:05:38.579 divided up into days. And over the course of these days, God creates time and space and land and sea. 00:05:38.579 --> 00:05:45.699 And then he creates all of the inhabitants that fill these various domains. And then on the sixth day, 00:05:45.839 --> 00:05:51.680 something interesting happens. After God creates all of the other land animals, the liturgy changes. 00:05:52.120 --> 00:05:58.579 The rhythm changes, which is a way of signaling, this is really important, pay attention. And then God says, 00:05:58.759 --> 00:06:07.259 let us make man, or that can be translated as humanity, in our image and likeness. Now he's already 00:06:07.259 --> 00:06:12.439 created all of the other living creatures. He's already pronounced them all good because they're 00:06:12.439 --> 00:06:19.579 all exactly what he intended for them to be. And yet up to this point, nothing, no one anywhere has been 00:06:19.579 --> 00:06:25.819 created to bear God's image and likeness. So right away, we're being told that human beings are utterly 00:06:25.819 --> 00:06:33.579 unique in this way. But what does that mean? Right? As you think about yourself, as we think about 00:06:33.579 --> 00:06:42.060 ourselves, what about us uniquely reflects God's image and likeness? What is it about you 00:06:42.060 --> 00:06:50.199 that bears God's image in the world? Historically, people have had different ways of interpreting this. 00:06:50.699 --> 00:06:56.139 There's a great summary of those various approaches to this from a scholar named Mark Cortez. We actually 00:06:56.139 --> 00:07:03.039 had the privilege of having him speak at our recent synod and convocation gathering that we did as a 00:07:03.039 --> 00:07:07.259 diocese. And we recorded all of those talks. And as soon as we get them, we're going to put them on our 00:07:07.259 --> 00:07:13.919 website so that you can access them if you want to go deeper into this topic. But just to give you a 00:07:13.919 --> 00:07:20.539 summary of the various positions on the meaning of the image of God in us, one very popular idea is what 00:07:20.540 --> 00:07:25.740 we might think of as the structural understanding of this. A lot of people think that there is some 00:07:25.740 --> 00:07:34.320 innate capacity unique to human beings that reflects God's image. So very often, you may have heard this, 00:07:34.379 --> 00:07:40.300 people will say, well, it's our capacity for rational thought. We're the only creatures in the world that 00:07:40.300 --> 00:07:48.720 have this capacity for self-aware rational thought. That's how we reflect God's image. So I mean, 00:07:48.720 --> 00:07:54.200 that's one of the ideas that I heard growing up as well. What I would say is this, while it is true that we have a 00:07:54.200 --> 00:08:02.780 capacity for rational thought, a number of scientists actually now claim that dolphins and whales also seem to 00:08:02.780 --> 00:08:08.840 have this capacity. And because of this, there's a growing argument that they should be considered non-human 00:08:08.840 --> 00:08:16.360 persons and afforded all of the rights of personhood. And it turns out that many of the capacities that we think make us 00:08:16.360 --> 00:08:22.879 unique as human beings are actually shared with other animals. When it comes to capacity, we're not quite as 00:08:22.879 --> 00:08:28.980 unique as we like to think we are. Moreover, this raises a question of how do we think about human 00:08:28.980 --> 00:08:36.800 beings who might lack this capacity for one reason or another? Severe cognitive disabilities or brain 00:08:36.800 --> 00:08:43.220 damage or coma or other things that might be idle. Now, I know that might be a weird curveball because 00:08:43.220 --> 00:08:49.000 almost always when you read the word idol in the Bible, it's a bad thing. But I want you to hang with me and I want to 00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:55.820 try to understand why this word would be used in this way. In the ancient Near East, in order to worship your God or 00:08:55.820 --> 00:09:03.100 your gods, you needed a temple because God doesn't just hang out in the countryside. You need a place to go to meet with 00:09:03.100 --> 00:09:08.800 your God. So you would have to build a temple. And then once you build your temple and get everything done, the last thing that you 00:09:08.799 --> 00:09:16.779 would do is you would need an idol to put in that temple that would be the divine manifestation of your God for you to 00:09:16.779 --> 00:09:22.000 worship. So you would create that idol out of stone or wood or metal or whatever other material you might want to use. 00:09:22.399 --> 00:09:32.079 And then you would ritually imbue that idol with the presence of your deity. And from that point forward, whatever you do to 00:09:32.080 --> 00:09:41.860 the idol, you do to the God. That idol is not just a symbol of your God. It doesn't just represent your God. It is the 00:09:41.860 --> 00:09:51.160 presence of your God in that temple. So it becomes a very sacred thing. Whatever you do to the Selem, you do to the God. 00:09:51.159 --> 00:10:00.579 Very important. Keeping that in mind when we go back through the Genesis account, this liturgy of creation, 00:10:01.480 --> 00:10:09.839 what we begin to see and what a number of scholars have convincingly argued is that when God is creating 00:10:09.839 --> 00:10:17.899 the heavens and the earth, what God is actually doing is creating a temple. And that all of creation, 00:10:17.899 --> 00:10:24.799 right, the sky, the sea, the land, the heavens, the earth, that God is creating one great temple. 00:10:26.059 --> 00:10:34.579 And he gets to the point where the temple has been created. And the last step is to create the idol to put in the 00:10:34.579 --> 00:10:47.220 center of the temple. Where's the Selem? Well, it's you and me, right? The idol in the temple of creation that is meant to be 00:10:47.220 --> 00:10:56.879 God's divine presence in the world. It's the human being, right? It's the human being. So it's not merely your 00:10:56.879 --> 00:11:04.200 capacity for rational thought or your ability to do something such as exercise domain or even your 00:11:04.200 --> 00:11:16.259 relationships that make you an image bearer. It is your body itself. Your body is the image. Your body is the 00:11:16.259 --> 00:11:22.779 idol. It is your body as God's divine presence in the world, not merely symbolic. 00:11:25.480 --> 00:11:35.759 God's actual presence. Whatever you do to the idol, you do to the God, right? So idols are by definition 00:11:35.759 --> 00:11:45.179 embodied. The entire point of an idol is to make the invisible divine God physically present 00:11:45.179 --> 00:11:51.919 in the world. It's to make the divine physical. And if you ever wonder, are we overemphasizing the 00:11:51.919 --> 00:11:58.639 physical here? Well, just look where the text goes. God determines to create God, man in his image. 00:11:58.799 --> 00:12:06.099 And then it says, so God created man in his own image, comma, in the image of God, he created him. 00:12:06.100 --> 00:12:13.879 Male and female, he created them. The emphasis there is on the physicality of our bodies. 00:12:15.300 --> 00:12:23.180 God's tselem, God's idols, are male and female human bodies in the world. Now just let that sink in. 00:12:25.379 --> 00:12:33.460 God created sexed, gendered bodies to be physical manifestation of his divine presence in the world. 00:12:33.460 --> 00:12:42.800 Does our capacity for self-aware rational thought reflect God? Yes. Does our ability to exercise 00:12:42.800 --> 00:12:46.860 domain in the world fulfill God's purpose for us and reflect his image in the world? Yes. 00:12:48.440 --> 00:12:55.580 Is our capacity as sexed, gendered human beings for love and relationship and procreation a reflection 00:12:55.580 --> 00:13:01.500 of God's image? Yes. But ultimately, what does it mean to bear God's image? It means to have your body 00:13:01.500 --> 00:13:10.159 in the world being what God intended it to be, his divine manifestation in the physical world. 00:13:12.019 --> 00:13:15.860 Just meditate on that. I could stop right there and we could just sit and think about that. 00:13:16.340 --> 00:13:20.840 And that would be sufficient. But you know me too well, and I'm not going to stop. And we're going 00:13:20.840 --> 00:13:27.179 to keep going. And you can think about that later. What does it matter that this is the case? 00:13:27.179 --> 00:13:33.439 And why is it so important? I would say this. And at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I don't think 00:13:33.439 --> 00:13:37.519 I'm being, I don't think I'm exaggerating here. This may be the single most important idea in the 00:13:37.519 --> 00:13:44.779 history of human society. I'm hard pressed to find another more important idea. Because in the ancient 00:13:44.779 --> 00:13:50.299 Near East, the idea that a human being could be the presence of God in the world was very unoriginal. 00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:54.740 Lots of societies believed that a human being could be God's presence in the world, 00:13:54.740 --> 00:14:04.000 but that only ever applied to kings or emperors. The radical nature of this claim, the radical nature 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:09.860 of the Genesis creation liturgy, is that this applies to every single human being on the planet. 00:14:10.039 --> 00:14:15.639 Not just the kings, but the peasants. Right? The people that you would look at and think, 00:14:15.779 --> 00:14:20.500 they're the trash of society. They're on the margins. Nobody cares about people like that. 00:14:20.500 --> 00:14:29.059 They're cannon fodder. Genesis would say, no, they're image bearers. They bear God's presence in the world. 00:14:31.559 --> 00:14:36.980 Right? Every human being, male and female, is a living, breathing manifestation of God's divine 00:14:36.980 --> 00:14:42.799 presence. This idea is foundational in at least two ways. The way we see ourselves, 00:14:42.799 --> 00:14:50.979 and the way we see and treat one another. It's foundational. So let me just go into a little 00:14:50.979 --> 00:14:56.259 more detail. It's foundational for how we see ourselves. You know, in our culture, you will 00:14:56.259 --> 00:15:05.099 often hear the message, love yourself. Hear it all the time. Tons of memoirs written where that is the 00:15:05.099 --> 00:15:11.639 essential core theme. Here's how I learned to love myself. It's a great message. I hope everybody loves 00:15:11.639 --> 00:15:17.000 themselves. But it does raise a question in our society. Why should we? 00:15:19.159 --> 00:15:23.340 You know, I mean, I know the truth about myself. And I can just tell you right now, 00:15:23.399 --> 00:15:27.679 there are a lot of things that I do that make me hard to love. And at the end of the day, 00:15:27.699 --> 00:15:36.600 when I stack all of that up, should I love myself? Should I love myself? If I'm really honest about 00:15:36.600 --> 00:15:42.279 myself? You know, in a secularized society, there's actually no answer to that question of why we 00:15:42.279 --> 00:15:49.220 should love ourselves. If we are just here as the product of a kind of blind evolutionary process 00:15:49.220 --> 00:15:55.759 unfolding with no ultimate meaning behind it, if we're just a step in a biological process unfolding 00:15:55.759 --> 00:16:04.620 over millennia, we're just kind of one stop on that train track into infinity. Why should we love 00:16:04.620 --> 00:16:10.500 ourselves? Why do we matter at all? And here's what happens. If you have no foundation for your 00:16:10.500 --> 00:16:19.080 own self-worth, if it's not grounded in anything, then it ultimately becomes connected to what we do. 00:16:20.340 --> 00:16:26.700 Right? Ultimately, then, our self-worth becomes rooted in what we do. We have to sort of prove our 00:16:26.700 --> 00:16:31.200 worth. We have to create our own foundation for why we should love ourselves. And another way to put it 00:16:31.200 --> 00:16:37.700 is self-worth then becomes performative. Right? It's the only other option you have. And so what we 00:16:37.700 --> 00:16:42.879 find now in society is that we live in a kind of culture where we have to continually project 00:16:42.879 --> 00:16:50.800 a version of ourselves, an identity out into the world, and gain affirmation to remind us and affirm 00:16:50.800 --> 00:16:57.960 to us that we are worthy. And so our self-worth, our self-image becomes performative. And this was 00:16:57.960 --> 00:17:01.540 happening, this has been happening forever, as long as human beings have been around. 00:17:02.680 --> 00:17:08.519 You know, Jean-Jacques Rousseau writes about this, how our self-love, our amour propre, as he calls it, 00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:15.799 becomes inflamed when we, when humans gather in cities and we're around other people and we begin 00:17:15.799 --> 00:17:20.319 to make comparisons between ourselves and other people. And he said, all of the injustice in the 00:17:20.319 --> 00:17:25.940 world arises because of our desire to prove our worth over and above other people. His answer was to 00:17:25.940 --> 00:17:31.660 go out and live by yourself in the woods. Now think about where we are today with the rise of the 00:17:31.660 --> 00:17:37.420 internet and social media and how much more inflamed all of this becomes. Constant performative 00:17:37.420 --> 00:17:47.000 self-worth seeking affirmation into this bottomless pit. It's an endless cycle. But if you believe that 00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:55.220 you are made in the image of God, then you have an entirely different foundation for your self-image. 00:17:55.220 --> 00:18:03.420 And it's one that is not rooted in you or anything that you do. It is simply rooted in your physical 00:18:03.420 --> 00:18:15.539 existence in the world and God's purpose for you when he made you. So we, as people who believe this, 00:18:16.200 --> 00:18:22.180 love and value ourselves tremendously. But we love ourselves not because of anything we do, 00:18:22.180 --> 00:18:28.160 but because of who we are as God's image bearers. So we love ourselves, but not for our own sake. We 00:18:28.160 --> 00:18:34.680 love ourselves for God's sake. And that's a completely different way to think about your own self-worth. 00:18:35.600 --> 00:18:42.019 And so let me just say to kids in the room, and let me just say to parents of kids in the room, 00:18:42.019 --> 00:18:49.660 it is never too early to start helping our children build a sense of their own self-image 00:18:49.660 --> 00:18:57.680 and self-worth on the foundation of their identity as image bearers. There is never, ever, ever too early 00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:03.180 to begin building that foundation, helping our kids understand that the thing that gives them worth, 00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:09.460 the thing that gives them value, I think the only way to build a healthy self-image 00:19:09.460 --> 00:19:17.440 is to root it in your identity as an image bearer. Right? And I think that when we do this with our 00:19:17.440 --> 00:19:24.519 kids, that is one of the best ways to sort of inoculate them and to prepare them for all of the 00:19:24.519 --> 00:19:29.640 toxicity and all of the lies out there about what makes you worthy and what makes you valuable. 00:19:29.640 --> 00:19:38.120 This is going to counter all of those false narratives about identity. You are here and 00:19:38.120 --> 00:19:43.340 you are infinitely valuable because you bear the image of the God who made you. And that's your 00:19:43.340 --> 00:19:47.440 purpose. And it doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter how many times you mess up. It 00:19:47.440 --> 00:19:52.020 doesn't matter how you might embarrass yourself. It doesn't matter if your life doesn't turn out the 00:19:52.020 --> 00:19:57.120 way you thought it was before you said anything, before you did anything, before you even took your 00:19:57.119 --> 00:20:05.879 first breath. You had infinite worth because you were made to bear the image of God. Right? So 00:20:05.879 --> 00:20:12.119 it's foundational for how we see ourselves. It's also foundational for how we see other people. 00:20:12.500 --> 00:20:17.519 You know, you could go outside right now over the Tacoma Park farmer's market and you could just grab 00:20:17.519 --> 00:20:22.279 some random people and you could just say, hey, I'm just doing a survey. Religious, irreligious, 00:20:22.279 --> 00:20:27.639 doesn't matter. Hey, let me just ask, do you guys believe in universal human rights? And you'd 00:20:27.639 --> 00:20:33.440 probably get 100% yes across the board. Now, a lot of people think that the reason that our society 00:20:33.440 --> 00:20:37.539 has gotten to the place where we believe in universal human rights almost across the board 00:20:37.539 --> 00:20:42.960 is because of the enlightenment. They say, well, it's the enlightenment that really gave us this 00:20:42.960 --> 00:20:49.039 understanding. But what we need to understand is that's a myth. That's a kind of modern myth. 00:20:49.039 --> 00:20:57.319 The enlightenment didn't produce these values. The enlightenment poached these values off the 00:20:57.319 --> 00:21:06.099 Judeo-Christian tree and rebranded them, repackaged them. The enlightenment, as it distanced itself, 00:21:06.200 --> 00:21:12.859 as people began to distance themselves from the idea of a creator God, and as more and more hope was put 00:21:12.859 --> 00:21:19.679 in pure science, not just science, which we believe is good and godly and a worthy pursuit, 00:21:20.219 --> 00:21:25.879 God-glorifying pursuit, but what we might think of as scientism, science as the ultimate answer to 00:21:25.879 --> 00:21:31.759 all questions. The more that began to happen, you began to have a refashioning of how we think about 00:21:31.759 --> 00:21:38.139 human beings. And so the enlightenment produced a racial taxonomy that is the foundation for modern 00:21:38.140 --> 00:21:46.040 racism. The enlightenment produced utopian visions of genetic purification through eugenics, right? 00:21:46.100 --> 00:21:51.060 Because no longer does every single human being have an eight value and worth as an image bearer. 00:21:51.840 --> 00:21:55.780 What we need to understand is the entire foundation for universal human rights, 00:21:56.340 --> 00:22:03.560 justice, and equality is rooted in the Imago Dei. That's the foundation for it. Because remember, 00:22:03.559 --> 00:22:09.240 anything that you do to the idol, anything that you do the image, you do to God himself. 00:22:10.200 --> 00:22:12.159 That's the entire foundation for ethics. 00:22:14.659 --> 00:22:21.919 So our desire, not just we at Church of the Advent, but the Christian desire to protect the rights of the 00:22:21.919 --> 00:22:31.960 unborn, the Christian desire to fight against racial injustice and inequality, the Christian desire to 00:22:31.960 --> 00:22:39.720 fight for equal rights and opportunities for men and women in society, the Christian desire to set the oppressed 00:22:39.720 --> 00:22:47.880 free or to stand with and give voice to the disenfranchised, the Christian desire to uphold the dignity of the 00:22:47.880 --> 00:22:56.500 elderly, these all come from the same place. It really cuts across political lines because all of these 00:22:56.500 --> 00:23:02.339 values, all of these commitments are rooted in our belief that every human being is made in the image 00:23:02.339 --> 00:23:10.700 of God. And cognitive capacity, wealth, skin color, class, gender, none of it matters. 00:23:13.859 --> 00:23:19.839 Because they're made in the image of God. And you know, this includes the way we see our enemies. 00:23:19.839 --> 00:23:25.699 It includes the way we see our enemies. When you see someone as your enemy, 00:23:26.119 --> 00:23:29.740 it is very easy to begin to see them as less than human. 00:23:31.359 --> 00:23:32.480 As less than human. 00:23:34.079 --> 00:23:39.459 You know, I was home, my family lives in North Carolina. I was home this past week. 00:23:39.839 --> 00:23:44.859 And I went with my dad and boys, we went somewhere and I went to use the bathroom and I looked down at 00:23:44.859 --> 00:23:52.740 the toilet and I noticed that it was glowing. And I kind of bent over and looked more closely and I 00:23:52.740 --> 00:24:00.039 realized that that was actually the face of a certain political leader being projected into the 00:24:00.039 --> 00:24:05.899 toilet bowl. So that when you use the bathroom, you are urinating or defecating on the image 00:24:05.899 --> 00:24:13.139 of this certain political leader that will remain nameless. And, but it was rural North Carolina. 00:24:13.140 --> 00:24:23.840 You know, so, um, I laughed. I took a picture of it. My son went in there, he used the bathroom. 00:24:23.940 --> 00:24:30.240 He came out and he said, why is the toilet glowing? I said, take a look. And he, and he had the same 00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:35.220 reaction I did. And I laughed. And then, and then, you know, my very next thought was, well, this is 00:24:35.220 --> 00:24:43.960 exactly what we do, right? We take the image of God and we project the image of God onto a toilet. 00:24:45.180 --> 00:24:52.700 And then we use the bathroom on it because it's our political enemy. And, uh, and, and I realized 00:24:52.700 --> 00:24:57.299 that this is just a one small example of something that we do all the time. We, we take somebody with 00:24:57.299 --> 00:25:03.500 whom we disagree or we see as other or enemy and we dehumanize them. And when we do that, 00:25:03.500 --> 00:25:12.440 we are defacing the image of God, we're committing heresy. Whatever you do to the image, you do to 00:25:12.440 --> 00:25:22.619 the God. So if you urinate into that toilet in a way, you're doing that to God. And, uh, and I was 00:25:22.619 --> 00:25:29.619 very convicted and very challenged as I thought about, while that was an obvious example that was 00:25:29.619 --> 00:25:37.099 easy to spot all of the ways I probably do that in my mind, all the ways I probably cease thinking of 00:25:37.099 --> 00:25:45.459 people as individuals who are worth my curiosity and I group them, which is a dehumanizing thing to do. 00:25:45.779 --> 00:25:49.579 I don't need to talk to you. I don't need to know what you think about this or that. I don't need to 00:25:49.579 --> 00:25:56.459 be curious about you as an individual because I know your type. You're urinating into the toilet 00:25:56.460 --> 00:26:01.720 when you say that. I know your type. I know what you think. You don't even need to open your mouth. 00:26:01.920 --> 00:26:04.180 I've already written you off. That's dehumanizing. 00:26:06.840 --> 00:26:12.720 What Genesis tells us, what this image bearer fact tells us is that we simply cannot do that. 00:26:12.720 --> 00:26:18.460 Whereas Christians who believe this, that is not afforded to us as an option. Each individual is an 00:26:18.460 --> 00:26:27.740 irreducibly complex, unimaginably valuable bearer of God's image, which means they deserve in the least 00:26:27.740 --> 00:26:37.860 dignity, respect, and curiosity. I want to know who you are. So what this means is we have to resist 00:26:37.860 --> 00:26:44.120 the urge to dehumanize. We have to treat each person as an irreducibly complex individual. 00:26:44.119 --> 00:26:50.679 Sometimes it's really hard. You know, sometimes it's hard to see that in other people. Sometimes 00:26:50.679 --> 00:26:54.799 it's really hard to see the image of God in ourselves. Sometimes we look in the mirror and 00:26:54.799 --> 00:26:59.500 we think, how in the world could I bear God's image? Or how in the world could that person who 00:26:59.500 --> 00:27:05.179 hurt me or traumatized me, how could they also be an image bearer? I just don't see it. 00:27:06.699 --> 00:27:11.599 And you know, sometimes it is very, very hard to remember that we are the image of God. 00:27:11.599 --> 00:27:16.079 It's easy to forget that because even though that is true, we are far from perfect. 00:27:16.579 --> 00:27:20.240 So for the Bible to say that you bear God's image is not to say that you are perfect. 00:27:21.159 --> 00:27:26.980 And because of human sin, because of human rebellion, the world is broken. We're broken. 00:27:27.299 --> 00:27:32.599 Our bodies are broken. Our hearts are broken. Our thinking, as scripture says, is futile. 00:27:34.099 --> 00:27:38.219 It's shrouded in darkness. In other words, we can't think our way out of these problems. 00:27:38.220 --> 00:27:47.319 So the image is there in each of us, but the image has been blurred. And it needs to be restored in 00:27:47.319 --> 00:27:54.460 each one of us. Right? That blurred image needs to be restored. You know, that reminds me, back in 2012, 00:27:54.600 --> 00:28:00.519 you may have seen this story that went viral. And this is back when not as many stories went viral. So 00:28:00.519 --> 00:28:06.680 I think a lot of people heard about this one, about an 81-year-old woman who was trying to restore 00:28:06.680 --> 00:28:14.519 a fading fresco in a Spanish church. It was this beautiful work of art, and it had faded over time. 00:28:14.519 --> 00:28:20.079 And she was an amateur painter and had all the best of intentions, but took it upon herself without 00:28:20.079 --> 00:28:27.220 telling anyone to sort of restore this fresco on her own. And the reason it went viral is because 00:28:27.220 --> 00:28:33.460 over time, she sort of transformed this person's face into what many people refer to as a furry Ewok. 00:28:34.579 --> 00:28:41.200 And so this very sweet woman sort of made a big mess of this restoration project. And it wasn't 00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:47.420 really her fault. She meant well, but art restoration requires, in the least, a professional painter. 00:28:47.420 --> 00:28:56.860 Ideally, the artist who painted it has the opportunity to restore it. If you could have the original artist 00:28:56.860 --> 00:29:03.960 come in and do that restoration, it might even be better than it was before. And it's the exact same 00:29:03.960 --> 00:29:11.220 when it comes to us and the image of God in us. You know, when we try to restore ourselves, 00:29:11.220 --> 00:29:18.559 when we try to do this renovation purely in our own willpower, purely in our own learning, 00:29:19.220 --> 00:29:29.720 it's laughable. Right? The result is a caricature. The result is a cartoon. Only God can fully restore 00:29:29.720 --> 00:29:36.460 the faded image that is in you back to its original glory because he's the original artist. 00:29:36.460 --> 00:29:43.819 And what the Bible says is that when God restores his image in you, actually the outcome is going to 00:29:43.819 --> 00:29:52.660 be better than it was when he first made you. It's going to be even more glorious. Right? And this is 00:29:52.660 --> 00:29:59.600 why Jesus Christ has come. This is one of the reasons that this is an Advent series when we focus on the 00:29:59.600 --> 00:30:06.240 fact that Jesus came and the fact that he is going to come again. Colossians 1.15 says, 00:30:06.460 --> 00:30:15.640 Jesus is the image of the invisible God. The image of the invisible God. The firstborn of all creation. 00:30:15.819 --> 00:30:21.400 What does that mean? If you want to see an unblurred image of God in the world, look to Jesus Christ. 00:30:23.600 --> 00:30:29.100 Jesus shows us what human beings should be. 00:30:29.099 --> 00:30:33.919 If you want to see an unblurred image of the invisible God. If you want to know what a fully formed, image-bearing 00:30:33.919 --> 00:30:39.059 human being looks like, look to him. That's the true image of God. 00:30:40.199 --> 00:30:46.199 And a couple of chapters later in that same letter in Colossians, here's how Paul describes 00:30:46.199 --> 00:30:49.959 the Christian life. He says, starting in verse 9, 00:30:49.960 --> 00:30:58.880 put off the old self with its practices and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge 00:30:58.880 --> 00:31:07.579 after the image of its creator. Jesus didn't just come to save people. He came to restore the image 00:31:07.579 --> 00:31:16.940 of God in people. He came to restore you and I. And when you come to him in faith and when you were 00:31:16.940 --> 00:31:26.080 baptized into his name, the Holy Spirit begins a massive renovation project in you to, as it says 00:31:26.080 --> 00:31:34.539 in Romans, conform you to the image of Christ, to conform you to the image of God. 00:31:36.759 --> 00:31:42.799 So this is going to be our theme throughout the season of Advent as we focus on the coming of Jesus 00:31:42.799 --> 00:31:49.399 Christ into the world. It's going to be our theme as we think about what it means to be human 00:31:49.399 --> 00:31:54.000 and what the coming of Christ means for our humanity. 00:31:55.879 --> 00:32:04.220 He doesn't just show us what we should be. He shows us what we will be. What we will be. 00:32:04.940 --> 00:32:09.899 And as we follow him, we learn not only what it means to bear God's image, 00:32:09.900 --> 00:32:15.940 but we become more and more truly and fully human. 00:32:17.500 --> 00:32:18.180 Let's pray. 00:32:21.180 --> 00:32:24.700 Lord, we thank you for your word. 00:32:27.600 --> 00:32:31.940 Lord, as Dan asked us to do earlier, just to think as we pray for you to come, 00:32:33.040 --> 00:32:35.160 what we hope to see restored and renewed. 00:32:35.160 --> 00:32:42.700 Lord, and I pray that whatever else that might be, that we would think of ourselves and our own hearts, 00:32:43.640 --> 00:32:49.240 that we would think of those around us, Lord, all of the ways society dehumanizes, 00:32:50.500 --> 00:32:52.980 disenfranchises, robs people of dignity. 00:32:54.040 --> 00:32:56.240 Lord, and that we would think about our enemies, 00:32:56.880 --> 00:33:00.920 Lord, those people who we may ourselves dehumanize in our own minds. 00:33:00.920 --> 00:33:09.720 And I pray that you would give us eyes and hearts to see your image clearly in each one of us. 00:33:10.320 --> 00:33:15.000 And that we would come to love ourselves, not for our own sake, but for your sake, 00:33:15.420 --> 00:33:19.240 even as we turn our eyes to Jesus Christ and hope for renewal in him. 00:33:19.680 --> 00:33:21.660 We pray this in your son's holy name. Amen. 00:33:21.660 --> 00:33:22.460 Amen. 00:33:22.460 --> 00:33:25.200 Amen. 00:33:25.200 --> 00:33:55.180 Thank you.