Preached in Markham Baptist Church, February 1, 2004.

Genesis 1:26-28

CONNECTING WITH THE GOD WHO CREATED US IN HIS IMAGE

You will remember the path that we have taken during this sermon series. We have been thinking of connecting with God, of having a walk with God that is so close, so intimate that we do not doubt his presence and his strength and love in our lives. We began thinking about the God who is, and discovered that there are reasonable arguments for God’s existence but it all comes down to a step of faith. We then thought about the God who creates and we asked ourselves if our God is too small? Or is He the majestic, sovereign God as He is shown to be in Genesis 1?

This morning we come to the idea of connecting with the God who has created us in His image. (Genesis 1:26)

What does this mean, to be created in His image? Well it is good news, for it means that we have something in common with God. We have been created in His image.

There are some people who do not have relationship with God because they feel that they nothing in common with God. They don’t know where to start. After all God is the great God of the universe and we are so small, they think.

But the good news of Scripture is that we are made in His image, we have something in common with God. Do you know how easy it is to start a conversation with someone you have something in common. We have something in common with God – we are created in His image, that’s a great conversation starter. Next time you start to pray and are at a loss for words, say to God, “So God, I hear that I have been created in Your image.” And see if thanksgiving and praise do not flow from your heart from that point.

It’s also good news because it also means that you and I are people of worth. You have been created in the IMAGE of God. Wow!

We think of who God is and we have been created in his image??? Wow! You are a person of worth. And we think of all the things that substantiate our being, that give us self-esteem and we discover they are nothing compared to the fact that we are created in the image of God. I don’t know where you find a self-esteem boost, maybe in your work, or a clean home, or your children, or success in the world – I don’t know where you find self-worth, but my friends, all these are fleeting, they are changing, - If you find worth in a clean house – your house will be dirty tomorrow. But hear the great fact you are made in the image of God. Let your self-worth be rooted in that fact. For it is a fact that will never change.

But what does that mean? What does it mean to be made in the image of God? Scholars have discussed this for ages. But let me suggest one answer. To be made in the image of God is to reflect His moral character.

We can think what it’s not. It’s not to reflect God physically. It is not that God has hands, feet, head. It is not that we are made in the image of God physically. Jesus says in John 4:24 that God is Spirit - He is not a physical being.

But it is interesting to note that as we read scriptures that our physical appearance does reflect the characteristics of God. God speaks, we have mouths that speak, God hears, we have ears to hear. God sees we have eyes to see.

It is not that reflect God physically.

The attributes of God, some of them are very different from who we are.

God is all power – He is omnipotent, all powerful. We are not all powerful.

God is omniscient – knowing everything there is to know. That’s true of God! But that’s not true of us.

God is omnipresent – able to be in all places at all times – that’s true of God, but that’s not true of us.

God is immutable – He doesn’t change – but that isn’t true of us.

God is eternal, He has no beginning and no end – but that isn’t true of us. We clearly had a beginning.

So what does it mean to be made in God’s image? I believe it means that we are created in God’s moral image. It means that God created human beings so that His moral character might be seen and known and made real.

So imagine yourself as being present in the garden of Eden. There you are, the proverbial fly on the wall, watching Adam and Eve, and as you watch them what do you discover? As you watch Adam relate to Eve and talk with her and walk with her what would you discover? You would discover what God is like. He would be gentle and loving and kind because God is gentle and loving and kind. And as you watch the way Eve treats Adam what would you see? You would have seen what God is like. If we saw the way they went about their work, the way they milked the cow, and fed the animals and patted the dog and stroked the cat, and cleaned up after the pig we would have seen what God was like.

Because to be in His image means to you look at man or a woman you see what God is like in His moral character. That’s what the word image means.

I am indebted to Charles Price for some of these ideas and I heard him say once that his eldest daughter was born with something of a problem. As he said that the whole auditorium when quiet, he said fortunately with time the problem is going away, and her basic problem is that people used to say to her “You look just like your father.” You can imagine that’s a problem, as she’s a girl! And Charles Price tells of a time when a friend came to visit him at his office whom he hadn’t seen in 15 years. Charles was busy with someone in his office and couldn’t come out right away, so his friend sat in the waiting room for a number of minutes. Finally Charles was free and he and his friend created one another – they hadn’t seen one another for some time, and the friend said, to Charles, “I didn’t know you had a daughter.” Charles replied, "How did you know I had a daughter?"

Well, said the friend, as I was sitting there waiting for you a little girl walked by and I said to myself, “Look at that, there’s a little Charles Price with a dress on.” Then he said this, “She’s your image.”

What did he mean? He meant that he looked at her and she reminded him of what her father was like. When God created human beings to be in His image, He created human beings in such a way that when people look at a man, woman, boy or girl they were designed to see what God is like.

But something went wrong. We need only look around at the decay and corruption of the world, we need only look at our own lives and discover that something went wrong. G.K. Chesterton once said, “What ever else is true of man, it is certainly true that man is not what he was meant to be.”

And it’s true, we know that Adam decided that he did not want to follow God and did not want to depend on God any longer. He disobeyed God, knowing the consequences he ate of the fruit and sinned.

The image became marred, smeared, distorted and death entered in. Humanity continues to have the capacity to reflect God’s image, but we lost the ability. And as a result every human being from Adam on has been born with a defect, we no longer clearly reflect who God is, but reflect another father and that is Adam.

If you turn to Genesis 5 you will read these interesting words – read Genesis 5:1-3. Sound familiar? Everyone from Adam and Eve on is now in Adam’s fallen likeness, in Adam’s own sinful image. The writer is purposely using the same language, he is telling us that everyone from Adam Eve on are now in Adams own image, in his own fallen likeness.

You know about purple loosestrife don’t you? Do you know how it is a strong weed that is taking over our swamps and streams and rivers? It’s a foreign weed introduced to our country by some shipments that came from overseas. It took root in this country and has spread and is very difficult to get rid of.

Well Adam and Eve introduced purple loosestrife into the human condition. That which was created in the image of God is now tainted with sin, forever.

That is why humanity can create but everything He creates gets twisted toward destruction and evil. We can communicate but along with truth and beauty there is also hatred and lust and greed and bigotry and death. That is why, though humanity knows moral values, he denies them and rationalize them to exalt evil.

But listen – and here is some more good news – it means that we have something in common with God, it means that we are people of worth, but here is the best news. Scripture speaks of two Adams, the first Adam came to the garden of Eden, the Second Adam is the person of Jesus Christ.

Let me do a little Bible study here with you. Turn to Colossians 1:10 – who is this referring to? It refers to Jesus Christ who is the image of the invisible God. Adam and Eve were made in the image of God, a second Adam has come and he is in the image of the invisible God. Or turn to 2 Corinthians 4:4.

Again, notice Jesus Christ is the image of God.

There are some people who want to tear out Genesis 1-11 from their Bibles. They say that Genesis 1-11 is simply myth and we can’t rely on it. Listen carefully – hogwash! You tear out those first 11 chapters because the themes, the ideas, the facts that are stated here go right through to the end. Adam first was created in the image of God – that image became tainted he no longer reflected the character of God – but the good news is that a second Adam has come and he is the image of God! And that means nothing to you if you do not understand Genesis 1:26,27 and Genesis 3.

Or look at Hebrews 1:3. The writer does not use the word image here, he uses, “Representation of his being.” That is Jesus reflects who God is.

All these texts are saying that like Adam and Eve when they were first on the scene there is another who is in the image of God – and that other one is Jesus Christ. Turn to one more text John 1:18. John is telling us, that we know who God is because he has been revealed to us by Jesus.

What is John and Paul and the rest saying about Jesus Christ?

They are saying that they in Jesus Christ the character of God, we saw what God was like. In other words, those of us who grew up with Jesus in Nazareth – who kicked the ball up and down the road with Jesus as a boy, went hiding in the hills with Him, when running in the forest with him, in the way He acted, in the way he reacted in the way He talked with His friends, in the way He talked to His mother we saw what God was like. When He began to work in His father’s carpenters shop, the way He went about His business, the way paid His bills on time, the way He invoiced accurately for work that He had done, the way that He got up early to put on someone’s roof that had blown off during the night. We saw what God was like.

When He began his public ministry, the way He began that ministry, the way He crossed the road to sit and talk with a dirty woman everyone else was embarrassed to be with, we saw what God was like. When a leper came down the road ringing his bell, saying, "Unclean, unclean," and Jesus crossed the road and spoke to the man and reached out and touched the man, we saw what God was like.

Well how is that good news? The good news is that when we place our faith in Jesus Christ he comes and lives within us and restores what God originally intended. So you have John 1:12 –

“to all who received him to all how believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural decent, nor of human decision or of a husband’s will, but born of God.”

You and I know have a new father. We have a new family tree. Instead of tracing our ancestry to Adam – we trace it to God, our Father in heaven. We are His children. And that sap that used to run through our family tree called sin, is no longer there because we are restored to what we were meant to be.

We are new creations says Paul to the Ephesians. This theme runs through the New Testament – Romans 8:29  “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son that he might be the first born among many brothers.”

Do you know that show the Extreme Makeover? It is a show where people have an extreme makeover to show a totally new person. There is going to be a new show called an Extreme Makeover for a home. My friends, if you have placed your faith in Christ you have had an extreme makeover! All things have become new in Jesus Christ. He comes and lives within us and now when people look at us should be able to say, I see what God is like. Because I see Him in you.

That’s the good news. We have the restoration of that person that we were created to be. Jesus Christ has come to restore that image in us.

One last thing, we need to realize that when Jesus Christ comes and takes up residence in our lives - it is instant in God’s eyes. He looks at us and sees us clothed in righteousness. But for us it is a progression.

God, in the person of Jesus Christ has come to restore his image in you and in me. It is progressive, it doesn’t happen over night – 2 Corinthians 3:17 says that we are “being transformed into his likeness”

We need to allow Christ to have more of our lives each day. So that His image can be seen in us. That is the measure of spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is not measured by how many chapters of the Bible we read, or how many worship services we attend. Spiritual growth is measured by how much more we are like Christ today than we were yesterday.

And to allow that, we need to allow Jesus Christ to have more and more of our individual lives. We wake up in the morning and we say, "Lord I want you to be reflected in my relationship with my kids. I want you to be reflected in how I do business today, in how I spend money. In all areas of life be reflected, let Your image be shown in me."

You see when you become a Christian the image of his character is seen in us. So, the way I treat my wife, the way I parent – should remind people what God is like.

The gospel is the restoration of that image – the restoration of His character in this world. So that when people in your office, people in your home want to see something of what is like then they look to you.

So as Paul says in 2 Corinthians, we are being transformed. That’s the key, that’s the goal of the Christian faith.

When we come to this table we are coming and confessing our sin and we are saying, "Lord, have more of us, be reflected in us. So that when people look at us they will be able to say, I see what God is like." We come asking that the image of God that was marred by sin would be restored. So that each day people would be able to say about us, I see what God is like.

Copyright MBC and Tom Cullen - February 2004