Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

Good morning, everyone.  Please take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Genesis, Genesis 1.  It’s an easy one to turn to.  It’s the first book of the Bible.  If you don’t have a Bible with you, there is a Bible in front of you.  Or you can maybe do a little neighbor-nudging and share with your neighbor, get to know the person to the right or to the left.  But we’re in Genesis 1 this morning talking about what it means to be created in the image of God.  We live in the age of logos, brands, perceptions and images, don’t we?  Everybody knows that a picture is worth a thousand words, but in today’s culture image really is everything.  And I’m borrowing an advertising slogan from several years ago.  I think it was Andre Agassi, the world class tennis player, who was a pitchman for Canon cameras.  And he was the one that delivered that advertising slogan.  He looked into the camera, and he says, “Image is everything.”  And it really is.  Some of the strongest images in our culture today are corporate logos.  You see the Coca-Cola logo and the Rolex and Nike and Adidas and a whole host of corporations that work really hard and spend a lot of money to craft and to carve their corporate image.  And in some cases corporations spend a lot of money defending their corporate image as well.  They get into lawsuits and things of that nature.  Politicians, celebrities, athletes and other high-profile people sometimes hire image-makers, high level PR firms to sort of craft their own image and the public’s opinion of them.  Nothing wrong with any of that.  But my question this morning is, in light of that cultural reality, what does it mean to be created in the image and likeness of God?  What does it mean for us, in effect, to wear God’s logo, His brand?  It’s kind of an interesting thought, isn’t it?

0:02:17.2

So let’s go back to the book of Genesis and to the creation story.  And if you were with us last week, you might have noticed that I only got partway through day six of creation.  God was busy on day six.  He created the beasts of the earth, the cattle, all the things that creep upon the surface of the earth.  But He also created man in His own image.  I want to suggest to you that for us to truly understand our humanity, we need to understand what it means to be created in the image of God and to come back to book of Genesis and rediscover this wonderful truth.

0:02:56.5

Let’s pick up our reading in verse 26, where it says, “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’  God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.  God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”  And let’s stop right there.  Up until this point in the creation story, everything up to this point was created for God’s purpose.  We are not the product of random chance.  We are not the unintended consequence of some chemical lab explosion in the cosmos millions and millions of years ago.  We are the product and the creation theater that we live in is the product of the intentional purpose of God in His creation.  Colossians 1:16 even includes the Lord Jesus Christ in creation.  It says, “Everything was created by him,”—that’s interesting, isn’t it—“and for him.”  Jesus Christ is not only the agent of creation, but He is the one who purposed creation.  Everything was created for Him.  And you and I who were created in the image of God were created for an intended purpose.  What is that purpose?  How are we to understand our God-likeness, created in His image and likeness?  What does that mean?  What are the implications for us today?  Well, there are several things that emerge, I believe, from a reading of this aspect of the creation story that we need to talk about this morning.

0:05:01.6

First of all, we’re to reflect the image of God.  As I said, we were created for an intended purpose.  And by the way, that gives great meaning and dignity and sacredness to life itself.  But what is that purpose for which God created us in His image?  In simple terms, it was to reflect His image and His likeness.  And I get the sense as I read the creation story that God experienced great joy and delight in creating us in His image.  If you go to the end of the creation story and verse 31 of Genesis 1, you find that daily assessment that God made of His creation.  At the end of day six, He looked at all that He had created, including man in His own image, and He said it was “very good.”  Up until this point, everything was good.  And when God says something is good, it’s really good.  You don’t have to say it’s great.  Good is good.  But now He says it’s very good.  And I think it captures the idea of the joy and the delight that God must have had when He created us, when He created man.  And He looked at man and He saw His own image and His own likeness.  It’s not unlike parents when we look at our children and we see something of our own likeness in our children.  Now, I’m talking about those positive qualities that we have.  Cathryn and I were at a dinner on Friday night.  And we were seated a table next to the speaker.  And he was quite a character.  And he was a proud grandpa.  And he was telling us about the ultrasound images that his son and daughter-in-law sent of one of his new grandbabies.  And he said, “I looked at that image.”  And he says, “He’s got a big ‘ol honker just like me.”  Okay.  Those are the images and likenesses and we don’t maybe like to see in our kids.  But Cathryn and I have two children.  And if you look at our children, you’ll notice that one looks just like a Jones.  She looks just like me.  She looks like her cousin.  I mean, she’s got Jones written all over her.  You look at our son.  He is the spitting image of a Dibble, Cathryn’s side of the family.  And we take great joy and great delight in looking at our kids.  We just got back their school pictures for the year.  And what joy and delight we have of looking at our kids and seeing our own likeness in them.  I think there was something that God experienced there where He said, “When I finally created man, it was very, very good.”  We were created for an intended purpose though.  And don’t forget that.  Just as the potter has an intended purpose for his pottery, and the toolmaker has an intended purpose for the tools that he makes, and the automaker has an intended purpose for the cars and the trucks that he makes, and the cook has an intended purpose for the food he or she prepares, when God created us in His image, He had an intended purpose.  And that purpose was for us to reflect His image and to reflect His likeness.  Or to say it another way, the intended purpose for our lives is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  I think He finds great delight in that.

0:08:31.1

But what does it mean to be created in the image of God?  How are we to understand that?  Theologians have kicked this around for centuries, friends, trying to understand the uniqueness of what it means to be human beings created in the image of God.  That great theologian John Calvin said, “The image of God extends to everything in which the nature of man surpasses all other species of animals.”  And he’s right.  There is something unique about what God did on the latter part of day six in creating man in His own image.  Calvin goes on to say that, “Though the primary seat of the divine image was in the mind and the heart or in the soul and its powers, there was no part even of the body in which some,”—and I love this phrase—“some rays of glory did not shine.”  Calvin saw the image of God as rays of God’s glory that shine down upon us as human beings in the totality of who we are, including the physical aspects, although don’t push that too far.  Because the Bible reveals God as spirit, not as a corporal body like us.  But Calvin said there was not any aspect of our being—physical, biological, emotional, spiritual, even our moral consciousness, our capacity for relationships—not a single aspect of that escaped the rays of God’s glory that came upon us when He created us in His image.  And those rays of glory give us great dignity and bring great value and sacredness to life.  Whatever it means to be created in the image and likeness of God, it is high and lofty and sacred.  We are separate from anything else God created, including the animals.  You won’t find a single animal carved into the image of God.  No animal, no bird, no fish, no plant can evolve into the likeness of God.  No, the divine image was exclusively minted and impressed upon human beings.  And so we are different than the animals, and it sets us apart from them.  It defines our identity.

0:11:00.3

Every aspect of anthropology and theology must go back to Genesis for us to truly understand our humanity and the nature of man.  And I would suggest that the image of God explains a number of things.  It explains our moral consciousness.  It explains our creativity.  It explains our capacity for human relationships.  It explains the higher dimensions of our intellect and our emotions.  It explains our language and communication skills as a reflection of our God-likeness.  And even our desire to have a personal and intimate relationship with our Creator says something about us being created in the image of God.

0:11:47.2

Now, the word “image” itself comes from a Hebrew root word that means “carving.”  You get the sense…and, by the way, the words “image” and “likeness”—you know, “created in our image,” “created in our likeness,” that you find there in verse 26—are really parallel expressions.  Some theologians have tried to nuance those two words to understand the image of God better, but they’re really parallel expressions.  But that word image suggests that somehow God carved man into His own image.  And that carving certainly has physical, biological, emotional, spiritual, moral, and perhaps a whole host of other implications.  And because we are created in the image of God, because we are created to reflect His image and likeness, life is sacred, isn’t it.  And because life is sacred, there does need to be a connection between the divine image on humanity and our public policy.  I came across this article written by Michael Gerson in The Washington Post, of all places.  Listen to this very carefully.  He writes, “If religious belief about the dignity of human life were illegitimate as a basis for public policy…”—in other words, if religion doesn't belong in the public square—“there would have been no abolition or civil rights movements.”  He says, “The idea of a divine image found in every human being is one of the main foundations for the American tradition of liberty, tolerance and pluralism.”  And he’s right.  In the absence of an understanding of the divine image in every human being, things like abortion on demand and euthanasia become more acceptable in our society.  But when we have a high view and a high understanding, a biblical understanding of who we are, created in the image of God, it can’t help but inform our public policy, as Mr. Gerson says.  We would not have had the abolition movement that eliminated slavery in this country, or the civil rights movement.  And we will never eliminate Roe v. Wade until we get back to Genesis and an understanding of the divine image impressed upon every human being, even at the moment of conception.  Now, some people would ask the question, what kind of job are we doing reflecting the image and likeness of God?  Some people say we’re not doing a very good job of that.  If this is what God looks like, as we look at our culture and our world, then, oh my.  And the reality is we do live in a fallen world, don’t we.  Or as an old seminary professor of mine used to say, “The image of God is defaced by sin, though not erased.”  There is still the vague memory and the vague resemblance of our God-likeness.  We are not God, but we are like Him.  We were made in His image.

0:15:18.7

It reminds me a little bit of a restoration project that took place in the Sistine Chapel years ago.  Remember the Michelangelo paintings, those beautiful fresco paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  Well, apparently after years and decades and centuries, those beautiful paintings began to fade and deteriorate.  And the curators of the Sistine Chapel were concerned.  And so they got experts together.  And soon after they began to build scaffolding from the floor of the Sistine Chapel to the ceilings.  And experts came in and went inch by inch across those paintings in a project that was meant to restore those paintings to their original beauty and their original luster.  And so, yeah, we’re not doing a very good job reflecting the image of God right now because sin…yeah, we haven’t gotten there in Genesis yet, but sin enters the world in Genesis 3.  And the image is defaced.  It’s defaced, but it’s not erased.  And when Jesus Christ comes into a person’s life, He takes the cross and He builds the scaffolding in our life.  And salvation is, in a sense, a restoration process whereby God is about the business of restoring the image of God to its original beauty and luster.  And so you go into the New Testament and you find language about being conformed to the image and likeness of God.  This is the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Jesus Christ builds the scaffolding.  The Holy Spirit goes up there and inch by inch and aspect by aspect in our lives, and He begins to restore the image.  But our intended purpose was to reflect the image and the likeness of God.

0:17:08.7

But secondly, we’re also to reproduce His image.  Let’s go back to verse 27.  It says, “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him.”  Now, watch this phrase here.  It’s nuanced even more.  “Male and female He created them.”  I believe at the core of what it means to be created in the image of God has something to do with our capacity for relationship.  We are like God in the sense that we desire and hunger for and have a capacity for intimate relationships.  And we see this in the plurality of the Godhead.  Go back to verse 26.  It says, “Then God said, ‘Let Us…’”—circle the word “us”—“make man in Our”—say the word “our”—“image, according to Our likeness.”  What’s with these plural pronouns that suddenly show up in the creation story?  Don’t get ahead of yourself.  I mean, assume you know nothing about that unique thing in Christianity called the holy trinity- Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  If you didn’t know anything about that, you’d read through the creation story, and you’d come to these plural pronouns.  And you’d say, “What’s with this?”  It’s like there’s this executive committee that got together and decided upon creating man in His own image.  Who is “us”?  Who is “our”?

0:18:36.5

Well, we know from the rest of the story and from our Christian theology that we can place every member of the Godhead in the creation story- Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The Spirit hovered over the formless earth.  Certainly the Father was there.  And we know from New Testament theology that Jesus was the agent of creation.  “All things were created by him and for him,” (0:19:00.1) Colossians 1:16.  But this not only speaks to the matters of the holy trinity. These plural pronouns drip with intimacy.  God is a relational being.  And when He created us in His image, He stamped upon us, He minted upon us a hunger and a desire and a capacity for intimate relationships.  And he says, “Male and female he created them.”  Whatever it means to be male and whatever it means to be female, whatever it means to be masculine, whatever it means to be feminine was God’s idea.  But have you noticed?  We are one of the most gender confused (0:20:00.0) generations I think to ever be on this planet.  We don’t know what it means to be masculine.  We don’t know what it means to be feminine.  Today we are raising feminine boys and masculine girls.  And the growing acceptance of homosexuality and lesbianism and transgender-ness in our culture isn’t helping matters, is it.  Parents, we have a responsibility.  And it’s becoming harder and harder to raise masculine sons and feminine daughters.  And any movement away from that not only undermines God’s intended purpose for the male/female relationship, but a movement away from that male/female relationship expressed in a number of different ways in our culture…a movement away from that defaces the image of God.  Because there is something about the male/female relationship that celebrated the image and likeness of God.  I don’t completely understand it.  But the scripture says He created them male and female.

0:21:12.5

Now, I want you to think with me about this a little bit.  The essence of maleness of initiation.  And the essence of femaleness is response.  Just think about that biologically.  I don’t want to get into too much detail here.  But biologically, men initiate.  Biologically and physically, women respond.  This is how we are built in the sexual relationship.  If you have questions about that, call Dr. Jack Merenda and make an appointment, okay?  The essence of maleness is initiation.  The essence of femaleness is response.  Physically, biologically, I think emotionally as well.  And it has implications on our salvation.  Now, listen to this very carefully.  Why does God present Himself…why does He reveal Himself as Father and not mother?  Is that because of some patriarchal thing centuries ago and we need to deconstruct that aspect of the text and pray to our mother who art in heaven as well as our father how art in heaven?  No.  God represents Himself as Father and as male because the essence of maleness is initiation.  He’s the one who initiates a relationship with us in salvation. It’s all about the Father’s initiation.  “For by grace you are saved.”  That’s male initiation.  By faith is female response.  So all that is wrapped up in the maleness and femaleness of what it means to be created in the image of God has huge implications.  And that’s why one of the devil’s favorite things to do is to confuse our understanding of the genders in our culture today.

0:23:08.3

I want to also suggest to you that men and women equally share in the image of God.  Men do not reflect the image of God more than women do, and vice versa.  And if we just understood that we might get along a little bit better as men and women, right, and have a better understanding of each other.  But we can take it even further.  One ethnicity doesn’t reflect the image of God better than another one.  A white person doesn't reflect the image of God better than a black person, or vice versa.  A physically and mentally challenged person is no less created in the image of God than a person of sound mind and body.  And the image of God is not rich or poor, is it?  The image of God never engages in class warfare.  The rich do not reflect the image of God better than the poor, or vice versa.  We equally share in the image of God.

0:24:03.4

Now there is something else to the command related to reproducing His image.  It says in verse 28 that, “God said to them,” this male and female created image of His, to “‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.’”  And here we’re introduced to God’s perfect plan for marriage and procreation, which is captured in the male/female relationship.  Let me say that again.  God’s perfect plan for marriage and procreation is captured in the male/female relationship.  And so any movement away from that—like toward a male/male marriage or a female/female marriage, as is becoming more and more acceptable in our culture—any movement away from that not only undermines the sanctity of marriage, but it defaces the image of God, which is male and female.  And I know it’s not politically correct to say that, and I may only have a few more months to say it without consequences.  But I’m gonna say it, that God’s intended purpose in marriage is for one man and one woman to become one flesh for one lifetime.  I must be doing pretty good today, because that’s two rounds of applause.

0:25:37.8

There is another implication here to reproducing His image, and that has to do with children.  What a joy and privilege it is to bring children into this world.  The Bible tells us in Psalm 127:3-4, “Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is a reward.”  Do you believe that?  I am concerned…  (Applause)  I’m only given about 30 minutes, folks, and didn’t plan on all the applause.  But I am concerned about the way some people view children as a nuisance.  Some nations that put limits on us fulfilling this divine command to be fruitful and multiply.  Something about that has to grieve the heart of God.  And let me just say a word to those of you who really want to fulfill this command but are having a hard time making the biology work.  Cathryn and I went through a time where it was difficult to get pregnant.  We didn’t get far down the journey toward infertility and all that before God blessed the fruit of her womb.  But we know something of that pain.  And if you’re here today and you have a deep desire as a couple, a married couple, to fulfill this commandment but it just isn’t working, you’ve got to trust the sovereign God who is the giver of life.  And I know you know that.  It doesn’t take away the pain and the agony.  But just know this, the strong desire to have children, to fulfill this command says something about what God impressed and minted upon you and me as we’re created in His image.

0:27:44.5

So we reflect His image.  We reproduce His image.  Thirdly, we receive divine favor.  Go back to verse 28.  And it begins with these four words, “And God blessed them.”  Say the word “blessed” with me.  [Blessed.]  He blessed them.  Do you want to live a blessed life?  Well, you and I are fortunate to have been created by a God who loves to bless His kids.  And the first man and the first woman were blessed and highly favored.  That word “blessed” really captures the idea of favor, well-being, prosperity, enjoyment, happiness.  God didn’t just stand up and say, “Ah, bless you kids.”  No, it’s much more intentional than that.  He made sure that His divine favor and blessing was on His creation.  That wherever His image and likeness went, His blessing and His favor went with them.  One of my prayers when I came here to Washington, D.C., was, “God, give me favor.”  Favor with the congregation, favor with the staff, favor with anybody I come in contact with, favor with my neighbors, favor with the community around me, favor with the world community that we touch here in Washington, D.C.  I can’t imagine living life or doing what I do for a living without the favor and blessing of God upon me.  And I pray for it every day.  And the good news is God is still in the business of blessing His kids.  He wants us to receive His divine favor.

0:29:29.6

Think about how Adam experienced some of this.  I mean, everything that Adam received from God was perfect.  God placed him in a perfect environment, gave him a perfect helpmate, even gave him perfect food to eat.  Go back to Genesis.  Let’s pick it up in chapter 1 and verse 29.  “Then God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food’; and it was so.”  The first man and the first woman, until the fall after Genesis 3, they were vegetarians.  Because there was no death in the world up to this point.  So there were no animals that were killed for food.  But that’s all right, because God gave Adam the most perfect food pantry you can ever dream of.  The perfect apples, the mangos, the perfect bananas, the perfect oranges.  I mean, anything that he saw except for one fruit tree, everything that he saw God gave him.  It speaks to the generosity of our Father.  It really strikes me, those phrases.  “I have given.”  Here is God who creates all this wonderful earth.  And then out of His own generosity says to man, “I give it all to you.”  What a good God and what a generous God we serve.  And so we receive His divine favor.

0:31:13.5

A little bit more difficult in the fallen world in which we live, isn’t it, to always see the blessing of God and the favor of God.  But make no mistake about it.  God is still in the business of blessing His kids.  Pray for His favor.  Pray for His blessing.  There is nothing wrong about receiving that.  Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from the Father above.  The apostle Paul tells us that God gives us richly all things to enjoy.  Solomon said, “It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun all the days of his life, which God gives him.”  He says it’s good to enjoy that.  So if God blessed you and He blesses your socks off, enjoy it.  Enjoy His blessing.  Enjoy his favor.  I think He is delighted when we do that.

0:32:06.9

So we reflect, we reproduce, we receive.  Finally, we rule the creation.  Let’s go back to verse 26.  “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and”—watch this—“let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth.’”  Let them rule over.  God’s intended purpose when He created us in His image was to make little rulers out of us.  And I am just fascinated that God would do this.  That He would create the heavens and the earth and all that is in it, and then turn the rule and responsibility for it over to man, over to humankind.  How many of you have ever built a house?  And when you were done with the house you said, “Hey, kids, it’s all yours.  You’re in charge.  Rule over the house now.”  I can’t imagine such a thing.  But God made us rulers.  The problem is, if you read a little bit further in the story and you get to chapter 3, when Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, man forfeited his dominion and his rule to the devil.  And this is why in the New Testament, in the Gospels, Jesus refers to Satan.  He refers to the devil as “the ruler of this world.”  Before Genesis 3, man ruled.  After Genesis 3, we abdicated our rule and the god of this world, the ruler of this world, the devil himself, assumed dominion.  There are certainly environmental issues here about caring for the earth and having dominion over the earth that we could talk about.  But the plan of salvation is meant to do two things, friends, from Genesis 3 forward.  It’s meant to restore the image and likeness of God in His creation and to restore rule and dominion and authority.  One day Jesus will come back, the scripture tells us, and He will reign and rule for 1000 years on this planet.  And there is this great cosmic saga called redemption and this great cosmic thing going on with the devil for dominion and power and authority over this earth and all that is created.  And we’re kind of in the midst of all of that now.  There is a sense that every time we get into temptation we abdicate some of our rule.  We abdicate and forfeit some of our dominion by giving it over to the devil.

0:35:01.4

So there are huge implications to what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God.  Are you reflecting His image?  In the New Testament it speaks over and over again on how in Christ we are being conformed to the image and the likeness of God.  This is the work of the Holy Spirit.  It’s part of that scaffolding that goes up.  He’s near the ceiling of your life just going inch by inch, category by category, saying, “Hey, we need to restore this area.  We need to bring this aspect of your life into closer likeness to the Father.  We need to conform this one into the image of the Son.  Give me room to do that,” says the Holy Spirit.  Because as you become more and more conformed to the image of Christ, and I do too, we get closer to fulfilling the purpose for which we were created and moving closer to the destiny that God has planned for us.  It all starts with origins.  Understanding our humanity in Genesis.  From an understanding of origins comes an understanding of purpose.  From an understanding of purpose comes the fulfillment of our destiny, and our destiny is found in Jesus Christ.  Let’s pray together.

0:36:17.6

Father, thank You for Your Word.  And thank You for Your Word that tells us we are created in Your image.  And we receive that as a reminder that our lives have great dignity.  That this life, this breath You have given to us comes with a sacredness that should cause every one of us in this room to pause.  Even to the extent that we have an influence on public policy, we need to remember that all humans have been minted with a divine image.  Father, I pray for our country, that we would get back to an understanding of that.  I pray for each one of us in this room, that collectively and individually, as couples, as families, that we would come back to the understanding that You are about the business of conforming us into the image and likeness of Your Son.  Father, I know You’ve got a lot of work to do in my life.  But I want to give You greater and greater freedom through the power of Your Holy Spirit to do that.  Show me those areas where the image has been defaced.  Show me where it’s faded and scarred and marred with the graffiti of this world.  And do Your work in me, in us, in this church so that when people look at our lives, they say, “Wow, they look a lot like their Father.  They seem to be a lot like the God they serve.”  And, Father, we want to give You great delight and joy when You look at us as well.  That every day and every moment of every day You see more and more of the likeness of Your Son in us.  And we pray this in Jesus’s name, amen.

0:38:35.5