Humanity
I am really intrigued by people on social network sites like facebook who have multiple identities or distort their true identity. For some I can understand the security issues of it, but others just want to present themselves different from who they really are. For many, we don’t really like who we are.
Image is huge in our society. There are plastic surgeons to change our image, the fashion industry is all about creating an image for people. We have a real difficult time being the true me. I am not sure I like me, and really not sure others will like the real me if they knew me. We feel like failures, misfits, outcasts, guilty and these feeling limit us greatly, in our relationships, in our abilities. If I were different here or in this way maybe things would be different for me.
We know we are supposed to feel good about ourselves, but often we don’t. Scripture says we are fearfully and wonderfully made, but we don’t always live like we believe it. We have no confidence in who we truly are.
We have seen these timelapse videos in reverse that start out as an adult but go backwards to when they were a baby, and we think that as a baby, everything was pure, innocent; babies were not incumbered by these feelings of inadequacy and guilt. But the same Psalmist who wrote I was fearfully and wonderfully made also wrote:
Ps 51:5
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
So we go back further in our little video, generations, generations, we are going all the way back to formula this morning…when God creates humanity.
The origins are about Revelation and Relationship and nothing conveys that more than what God does as He creates humanity.
From the first verse of Genesis – the book of origins – we encounter a God of personality, character, purpose and activity with His creation and now he brings us to humanity. God has spoken into the void, empty, chaos and began to bring order, beauty, purpose as he creates the world and everything in it. And now we discover that:
We were created in Relationship
With Purpose, Dignity & Responsibility
For Relationship
Everything the God of the Bible does is in relationship and it is part of his very nature. He never acts in independence.
Jesus was in constant relationship with the Father, and even now is interceding with the Father on our behalf. (Jn 10:30; Rom 8:34)
The Holy Spirit says and does nothing on his own, but only that which points to the Father and Son (Jn 16:13)
The Father loves His Son and is showing Him & giving Him all things, involving His Son in His work (Jn 3:35; Jn 5:20)
God does not exist by neither desire, nor nature independently
An amazing thing occurs in the creation story when we arrive at verse 26 – God becomes plural.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,
This short phrase has initiated much theological conversation over the centuries.
Let us make man—The early church Fathers believed this to be the three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
More contemporary commentators have suggested other alternatives, perhaps a reference to the ‘court’ of heaven, of angels and other heavenly beings that God would consult
The fact that in the first two verses of the bible references to distinct roles:
Gen. 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
And that Colossians says of Jesus Col. 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created:
I believe that when God says “Let us make man in our own image” He is referring to the collective relationship of himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and it is in the culmination of this relationship humanity comes into existence.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,
We are made in God’s Image
Image & likeness: "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...”
Image = copy or close representation
Likeness = comparison of one object to another, correspondence between two objects
Humans bear the image of God, truly like God but not identical to
The Big Finish
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
God completes His creation – humans bearing his image reaches the Goal
Gen 2:7
7 the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
The image of God is an important concept for us to understand, because this is who we are – who we are designed to be – to be made in the image of God defines us and this has some crucial truth regarding our purpose and value as women and men today. This sets in place the importance and value that would motivate God the Father to send God His Son to break into humanity to redeem it, to return it to it’s original state and value.
The Hebrew word ‘selem’ (“image”) is a representative in physical form, not a representation of the physical appearance. It is not that we look like God physically or that God looks like us. But we are the ongoing representative who acts, works, lives, regards, rules, on behalf of God.
Like our Governour General – David Johnston - who looks nothing like the Queen, but acts, works, lives, regards, rules on the Queens behalf.
While a baby may look like its father, he has his fathers eyes, she has her mothers nose, that baby doesn’t really look like the father or mother, but based on the inherent image and the relationship with the father, the image grows more recognizable as the child matures. This does not only take place in physical ways, but also ways the child mirrors the attitudes, expressions and character traits of the father.
While the Bible says we are made in the image of God, we likewise have the capacity to become more and more like the image of God. We were created with the potential to mirror His divine attributes.
We live in an increasing atheistic society that is unable to fathom a creation with purpose.
People today are more likely to agree with Hemingway’s assessment that life “was all a nothing and man was nothing too” and that people are, therefore, no more than an accident suspended between two accidents (birth & death). Limited by material, with no sense of the eternal.
PURPOSE – our purpose / capacity is to be God-Like. This impacts the way we view ourselves, how we live and desire to be in a relationship with God. While ethical systems that are above reproach should typify a Christian, it cannot represent the sum total or our faith. When it comes down to it, our faith cannot be defined by a set of rules that we live by, for our aspiration is to be Godlike and in that we find our purpose
We live in a goal oriented society that attempts to delineate everything, reducing it to a list so we can assess the achievement of our goals. Employees want to know precisely what the criteria they will be assessed in their job performance. Education is enamored with outcome assessments and setting and meeting measurable objectives. Students want to know what they will be tested on so they can study to pass the test. Teachers know that principals are evaluating them on the basis of the scores of their students so they teach to the tests. Politicians seek to know the issues important to their constituents so they can speak to those concerns inorder to get elected. This is the reductionism that drives our society, to reduce as many aspects of our life down to a list of important criteria so we know when we have succeeded. This has impacted Christianty too, but the good news is we are free from the law and it’s potential for reductionism.
Being Christian means more than acquiring information or living to a set of rules or standards. God wants us to look and live like him – in his image.
God says Lev 19:2 ‘Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.
Paul writes Phil. 2:5 ‘Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:’
Eph 4: 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Eph. 5:1 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children
Being made in the image of God confers on us DIGNITY, entrusts us with RESPONSIBILITY, and infuses us with potential – namely the CAPACITY to mirror our creator.
DIGNITY – Human dignity impacts HOW we treat other people. Since all people are made in the image of God, all deserve to be treated with dignity that image affords.
We live in dignity when we treat others with dignity. We have God given dignity, therefore we can give dignity and when we do we show we live in the dignity God has given us.
How do we live in dignity?
Dignity is important – it builds self-esteem. Being created in God’s image is the greatest source of self esteem.
Acknowledge others – their worth, significance to you personally
Make room for others in your life – let them into your circle
Seek their good – Phil 2:8-9 = Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit but in humility consider others better than yourself, Each of you should not look to your own interests but also the interest of others.
This was said of Mother Teresa as she received the Nobel Peace Prize: (Presentation Speech by Professor John Sanness, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee)
“The hallmark of her work has been respect for the individual and the individual's worth and dignity. The loneliest and the most wretched, the dying destitute, the abandoned lepers, have been received by her and her Sisters with warm compassion devoid of condescension, based on this reverence for Christ in Man.”
Mother Teresa knew that each person had dignity because they were made in the image of God himself.
We live in a society that reduces the value and dignity of the person, As Christians we can and should seek to shape society around us in ways that will preserve human dignity, but that will not always be possible in Western society. It is sometimes difficult to identify the path that upholds human dignity in a society that values rights above all else and formulates everything in those terms. We long to be accepted, respected, included and we believe the path to that is in establishing our rights.
We have the right to life, right to choose, the right to be employed regardless of race or sexuality, the right to equal treatment and equal pay for equal work – the list goes on.
John Walton rightly askes “How can dignity be preserved in the stampeed of rights?
When rights are granted on principle or coerced through demand – dignity is lost in the equation. If we truly believe in dignity for all, rights and their protection will follow automatically. The protection of rights is inevitable if the preservation of dignity is valued, but it doesn’t work the other way, preservation of dignity is not an inevitable result of protection of rights.
If minority ethnic groups are treated with dignity, they will not have to wonder if they have been give a job only because of the rights issue. When women are treated with dignity in the workplace they will not suffer degrading harassment. When children are treated with dignity at home, they will never feel unwanted and grow up with the physical and emotional scars of abuse.
Walton writes:
“We live in a world of rights that has no sense of purpose; we live in a world of tolerance that has no sense of dignity for those tolerated or conscience concerning what is to be tolerated, we live in a world of leisure and squander it on empty pursuit, we live in a world of comfort and convenience where we can accumulate anything we want except that which matters most.”
Therefore, dignity has been displaced in our society by cheap imitations that masquerade as rights. When we place more attention and effort in protecting rights over the dignity of the person who has been made in the image of God we cheat them from that which will truly bring them hope and restore their true value.
In our church, our chief motive is to Love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind; and love our neighbor as ourselves. In doing this we restore the dignity in others around us and in the process live in the dignity the image of God has bestowed upon us.
The Image of God impacts how we live in this world and the RESPONSIBILITY entrusted to us. God reinforces this directive by twice in verse 26 & 28 God entrusts humanity with work and responsibility, to rule over and make sure everything in this physical world works and is cared for.
This effects the sense of stewardship for our environment. This world is not ours to use and dispose of at our will, but God has put it under our charge to manage for it’s owner – God. This management is not with our won benefit in mind, but for the mindset that this is God’s world and we are to care for it. We have a sacred responsibility to steward everything in our world. Our dignity as humans is maintained when we treat the rest of God’s creation with dignity.
Prov 12:10 A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal,
Jer 12:11 the whole land will be laid wastebecause there is no one who cares.
This responsibility is to remind us of our connection and accountability to God the creator of all he has place before us, all the people he has placed around us and our own creator who has bestowed us with the dignity and capacity to carry out this responsibility.
We are created in the Image of God:
and dignity to reflect and represent the nature and character of this relational God = have intrinsic worth not just useful for what we can do but who we are; because I am made in the image of God, I am a person of intrinsic worth and i will treat you as a person of intrinsic worth; not ignored but noticed and loved. I will not reduce you to a stereotype or number
We are created for relationship. The responsibility he has entrusted to us keeps us accountable to that relationship. , we do not act independently. We cannot presume to go it alone, we need him and we need each other to live out the image that we are made in
18 The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
Gen 2:2-3
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
NIV
And God rested – Holy rest
Sabbath – a time to spend with God - a time for Him to enjoy His creation ( incl us) and Us to enjoy Him – time to acknowledge God’s ACTIVITY
The Sabbath is the way we acknowledge that God is on the throne, that this world is His world, that our ‘time’ is his give to us. It is the “Big Picture” and the big picture is not me, my family, my career, my world. The big picture is God.
Sabbath is intended to break me away from my world that seeks to enslave me to it’s desires and re-orient my life back to my relationship with God.
We must remember, this was written to ancient Israelites who were about to enter into a promised land and establish a new way of living. Moses had given them the law that called for them to keep the Sabbath and make it holy and now they can see that the God they follow and serve created the Sabbath, to make a time for him to be with them, because a relationship with God is essential to their life.
Ancient Israel life was full and demanding as well. Most probably worked 15 hrs a day, they were hardworking people and carving a day out and setting it aside did not necessarily ‘make sense’ to them.
How does knowing I am made in the image of God change the way I live?
That I am made to look like him – holy, compassionate, full of love, grace, always forgiving – Do I resemble him in my lifestyle?
That I am made with dignity? Am I exercising dignity? To everyone, would it change the way I looked at others, treated them?
That I am made with responsibility – Do I live carrying out that responsibility. How I care for the environment, animals
Do I live with Him in Sabbath?
How would God say I am at living in relationship with him? If God were ‘waiting’ for me on Sabbath, do I stand him up?
Am I looking more and more like God or am I expecting him to look more like me?