God Loves
Tom Shrader teaches from Genesis 1 and 2 on the doctrine of humanity as the image-bearers of God, outlining six ways people are uniquely distinct from the rest of creation: in how they were made, their inherent value, their calling, their morality, their relational completion, and their God-given image. He connects the communicable and incommunicable attributes of God to the practical reality that human worth is not self-generated but flows from the One who created them. The lesson grounds ethics, marriage, purpose, and community in the created order, and closes with a call to missional living as part of God's ongoing story of redemption and restoration.
“You have inherent value because of who created you and the value He places on you.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Doctrine
Recorded: 2011 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 52 min
Themes: identity, human worth, image of God, purpose, marriage, community, missions, creation, feeling unworthy, questioning purpose, new believer, young adult, husband, parent, struggling with identity, seeking community
Scripture: Genesis 1:1, Genesis 1:3, Genesis 1:6, Genesis 1:9, Genesis 1:11, Genesis 1:14, Genesis 1:26-27, Genesis 1:28, Genesis 1:31, Genesis 2:7, Genesis 2:15-17, Genesis 2:18, Genesis 3:8, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Matthew 6, Ephesians 5, Ecclesiastes 12:13
Theological Themes: imago dei, image of god, communicable attributes, anthropology, created order, sanctification, redemption, biblical ethics
Full Transcript
Series Context and Introduction
If you have Bibles, you can open them to Genesis chapter 1. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and we'll bring you one. Today is the fourth week in a 13-week series dealing with doctrine. The topics are listed on the cover of your bulletin, starting in the upper right-hand corner — work your way around all 13 weeks. Seven or eight hundred of you have purchased the book we're using by Mark Driscoll and an associate of his, and probably another five or six hundred of you have the study guides. I was walking around the room before the 8:30 service and saw half a dozen people going through the study guides for today, and I'm hearing great things about those. If you don't have those resource tools yet, you can still go over to the bookstore and pick them up — there are a few copies of each left.
Today our text will be Genesis chapter 1, verses 26 and 27. Let's read it: "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. Let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' And God made man in His own image. In the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."
At the opening of Driscoll's section on mankind being made in the image of God, he writes this: "What does it mean to be human? The question has implications for seemingly every discipline from theology to sociology, history, biology, psychology, and the like. It is the doctrine that answers questions regarding how mankind is different from God the creator and His creation. It also reveals why we can believe in such things as compassion and equality, truths that an evolutionary worldview simply can't permit." This is a huge topic.
I want to encourage you this summer to visit our other campuses on Sundays. I was at Arcadia last week, and Gateway has been open about four weeks. Since all three campuses teach the same material each week, you won't miss anything — you'll stay right in the flow of the series. You don't have to make it your home campus, but visiting will give you a sense of what God is doing in Redemption Church, and it will make it much easier when you meet people to say, "You live out in the East Valley — you ought to try the Gateway campus," or "Take a look at Arcadia."
How the Teaching Day Works
Whoever teaches here at Gilbert teaches four times that day — 8:30, 10:30, 4:00, and 6:00. We always debrief afterward, and essentially every guy says the same thing: the 8:30 service is the toughest. It's early in the morning, but what really makes it difficult is that it's your first time through the material. You see things and think, "That illustration didn't work at all," or "This point should come later." People come up afterward and ask questions that help you rethink how you explained things.
Then at 10:30 — which is when we tape, so what you'll find on the website is whoever was speaking at 10:30 — this is usually the best of the day. At 4:00, after you've gone home and slept and had two burritos, neither you nor the congregation particularly wants to be there. And at 6:00, the horse is heading for the barn. So 10:30 is the one that matters most for the recording.
The reason I mention all of this is that the same thing has happened to me across this series — I have a better understanding and appreciation for week one now than I did at the time.
Recapping the Series So Far
In week one, Tyler taught here in Gilbert about the Trinity — that there is one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons eternal and continuing in their personhood, individuals yet united, a perfect model of love and humility and submission, and why that matters. We will connect that to what we're looking at today.
In week two, I was here and we talked about God revealing Himself. God reveals Himself to us in nature — we look at the sky, the stars, the moon, creation, and that points us to a Creator. But then God also revealed Himself to us in the Bible. We spent our time in 2 Timothy 3:16-17: "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." God speaks to us and reveals Himself through His Word, which becomes our north star, our compass, our owner's manual — telling us everything God wants us to know about Him, about ourselves, and about the world.
I've said it many times, and it really applies here: in my Bible, literally page 1 and page 2 is God creating. Page 3 and a couple of verses is man's fall into sin. The rest of the Bible is God redeeming and restoring what happened. It's His story — how do I get the most out of this life. We put it this way: the Bible tells me what's right, what's not right, how to get right, and how to stay right.
God's Creation: Where We Begin
Last week, Neil taught about creation. He began in Genesis 1:1 and worked his way through the idea of God creating. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Here is what God wants us to know about how this all began: in the beginning, God created. The Hebrew word for God there is plural — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So in the passage we are looking at, Genesis 1:26–27, God says, "Let us — plural, personal — make man in our image."
Here is this eternal God who begins to create. Now, we are going to talk about you and I being creative, but in terms of creation — the way God created — we could never do it. God created from nothing. There was God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and He predates any creation. From nothing, God spoke this world into existence.
That is what Neil took you through last week. Verse 3: "Then God said, let there be light." Verse 6: "Then God said, let there be an expanse of mist of waters." Verse 9: "Then God said, let the waters below the heavens be gathered." Verse 11: "Then God said, let the earth sprout vegetation." Verse 14: "Then God said, let the lights of the expanse of heaven be separated day and night." God speaks these things into being.
The Difference Between Creating and Manufacturing
This distinction is really important, because I do not want us to think that somehow you and I and God are all doing the same thing when we create. We manufacture. Take the craftsman who made this piano. We might say he or she is very creative — they took raw materials and molded them into screws, nuts, bolts, keys, wheels, and legs, assembling and crafting them, adding the wires, tuning it in such a way that someone with real talent could sit down and make beautiful music. But they did not create the way God created. They manufactured.
They took raw materials and from them, perhaps in an imaginative and skillful way, fashioned a piano, a guitar, a drum set, or a pulpit. God, however, took nothing and made everything. That is a very big difference.
How These Weeks Connect
One of the things you learn as you work through this series is that one week ties very closely to the next and could easily spill over. As Neil was teaching last week, there was an internal mechanism at work — he had to hold back when he got to the creation of man, because that is this week's topic. God creates, and now we come to God creating man — by which we mean man and woman, people.
Next week we will be teaching the fall. We will look at Genesis 3 and talk about how the world got as broken as it is. But to really understand the fall, it is important to understand how distorted this world is from what God intended it to be. Even as I was putting this lesson together, I kept feeling it pull toward next week. These topics all run together, and I really encourage you — if you missed one of these, go back and listen. Listen again, because you will start to see how it all fits together.
The Crowning Jewel of Creation
So here is this creation, and now we come to what I believe is the crowning jewel of God's creation. I believe it because He says it — and that crowning jewel is us. That is mankind. This is why these questions become so important.
You essentially have two worldviews. One says this all just happened — we do not really know how it started, and in a sense, it is all just an accident. Generations of young men and women have now been raised with the idea that they are here by accident and they are not going anywhere. Does that not change the way you live? Compare that to believing in a creative God who made you, who has meaning and purpose for you, and who promises life after death. That difference is going to show itself enormously in how you live.
If you are an accident going nowhere, the logic follows: whatever, it does not matter, I will get all I can for myself because it is all about me. To take someone who believes in a random, evolutionary process and then tell them that mankind has value — you can reasonably ask, why? What is the difference between us and anything else? We are all an accident. If you are going to hold that view, at least be consistent.
The other worldview is that there is a Creator. We hold the biblical worldview: there is a God who creates, this is not an accident, and there is a preexisting, eternal God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — who exists in perfect harmony and unity and who is also creative. They make this world and everything in it. You have God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — and everything else is creation.
Made in His Image
Look at the verse: "Then God said, let us make man in our image, in our likeness." We are literally a reflection of Him. We are a mirror of Him — not perfectly, but genuinely. Let us do a little theology here.
God has what we call attributes, and those attributes fall into two categories: incommunicable and communicable. God's incommunicable attributes are unique to Him alone. His communicable attributes exist perfectly in Him but are also found in us. God's incommunicable attributes include things like this: He is omnipresent — He is everywhere at all times. No creature shares that, not even Satan. So often the way people talk about the devil, you get the impression that he is everywhere and all-knowing. But no — he is a creature. God alone is omnipresent.
God is also omniscient. He knows everything — past, present, and future. He knows everything that happened, everything actual, everything potential. He knows you. He knows what you thought, what you said, what you did, what you did not do, and what you will do. He is God. He is also all-powerful — able to do anything that He wills. Now, this is important: He cannot act contrary to His own nature. So when we say God can do all things, we mean all things consistent with who He is.
Incommunicable and Communicable Attributes of God
Can God sin? No. Can God make a square circle? No — that is a contradiction of terms. He is going to do all things, but He is always going to act consistent with His nature. God is immutable, which means He does not change. I like the way Driscoll states this, because it is helpful: God does not change in His essence, character, purpose, or knowledge, but does respond to people in their prayers.
God is immutable. He is not becoming. You and I are evolving, morphing, deteriorating. There is a woman who comes to the 8:30 service, and about a month ago I noticed she was wearing a brace on her wrist. I have been having a lot of problems with my own wrist, so every week the two of us just compare notes — how is your wrist? This morning she mentioned something, and it reminded me of two weeks ago when I was trying to use a stool as an illustration. I could not pick it up. I had to bend over and use two hands. Each week I try to find out what her doctor is telling her it might be, because I am sure that is what I have too, since I do not want to go to the doctor myself. The point is, I am changing. I am not immutable.
God is eternal — no beginning, no end, not bound by time or space. And He is sovereign, meaning He holds supreme control and absolute authority. None of those attributes describe you. You are not omniscient, not omnipresent, not all-knowing, not immutable, not sovereign, not eternal.
However, there are attributes God has that are communicable. He has them perfectly, and we have a portion of them. If you have the doctrine book, turn to page 121. God is holy, meaning He is absolutely separate from evil. We near that in the sense that we should hate sin and love holiness, but you all know from your own life that our version of that is not perfect. He is love — perfect love, perfect goodness — and we mirror that in the way we love Him and love others, or try to: family, friends, even strangers.
God is truth, the source of all truth, and we try to mirror that as we reflect biblical truth. He is righteous — and I like how this is stated — He does not conform to a standard of right and wrong; the right and wrong flows from Him. We mirror that as we try to bring justice into the world around us. He is merciful, and He is beautiful. We try to mirror that as we create, as we enjoy beauty, as we steward the creation He has given us and express it in art, literature, or some other form. So when we say we are made in the image of God, it is not limited to just these attributes, but you get a sense of it: when you look at us, we are a reflection of Him. We are a mirror.
A Broken Mirror — Coming Next Week
We could jump ahead to next week and see that we are a broken mirror — that what God designed and intended has been distorted by sin. We will get there, but that is next week's topic.
Six Things Unique About Humanity
What does it mean that we are created in the image of God? Genesis 1 tells us, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness," and then shortly after that God tells us to rule over the fish, the birds, and the cattle. He created us in His image.
Every Wednesday at 11:45 we get together as a team. The guys who are going to be teaching on the coming Sunday have to be in the room, and then everyone else on the pastoral team is invited. Last Wednesday at 11:45 we were talking about next week's lesson. I was there because I am teaching here. Matthew was there because he is teaching at Gateway. Justin was there, and Tyler was there — four of us teaching next week — along with probably another eight guys. We are there to talk about the lesson: What is God trying to say to us? What is the big idea we want everyone at Redemption Church to walk away with? What action can they take? How does the gospel influence it?
I will tell you this: for however long — twenty-five years — I have done all the lessons essentially by myself. I do not do that anymore, and I love it. I learn so much. It is helpful in both directions. I will listen to some guys and think, I have got to remember not to say that. And then there are guys who will say, "Okay, this is it — have you looked at this?" and ask just the right question. Justin, for instance, taught essentially this lesson two or three months ago in St. Louis. So two weeks ago when we were working on this material, we had all of our own notes and then added Justin's notes on top of them.
So for at least this section I am going to follow Justin's outline on the image of God. We find six things that are unique about humanity — six things that separate us from all the rest of God's creation — and all six of them appear here in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. We will be going back and forth between the two chapters.
First: We Are Unique in the Way God Made Us
The first point is that we are unique in the way God made us. Throughout Genesis 1 the pattern is the same: God said, and it was so. God said, let there be light — there was light. God said, God said, God said. But when you get to chapter 2 and Moses describes how we were made, something is different. Verse 7 reads: "Then the Lord God formed man from dust, from the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being."
There was something different about the way we were created. There is a sense of intimacy in our making that sets us apart from the rest of creation. Our relationship with the Creator is different from that of a tree, a rock, a whale, or a mountain. And when you look ahead to chapter 3 — Adam and Eve, the temptation, the fall, the eating of the fruit — verse 8 tells us: "They heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day." I take from that that this was not an unusual occurrence.
The Intimacy God Has With Humanity
The relationship God had with Adam and Eve in the garden was normative for them. They were created in union with God. We see dialogue with them. We see God communing with them in an intimacy that He does not have with any other creature. There is a distinctive there that sets humanity apart.
The Unique Value of Human Beings
The second unique thing is the uniqueness of our value — or, to use the term — our perfection. In Genesis chapter 1, verse 31, up to that point God creates the heavens and the earth, sees the light, and declares it good. He sees the earth — good. Trees — good. Birds — good. But when He looks at man, He beholds him and says, "It is very good." There is something unique about man as compared to all of creation.
In Matthew chapter 6, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is talking about the fact that you cannot have two masters. He is talking about worry, about provision, about how God cares for us, and how worrying is not going to add one day to your life. He says, "Look at the birds. The birds are not planting, they are not harvesting, they are not sowing, and yet God takes care of them." Then He asks the question: "Are you not worth more than they?" He does not answer it, because until recently, everybody understood the answer was yes.
This week I came across a news story that played itself out in the media. The city of San Francisco, which is already trying to ban circumcision, has now added goldfish to its list of banned pet sales. The story describes the goldfish as the classic first pet — one given at a fair as a child's first taste of responsibility. The Animal Control and Welfare Commission stated that fish are often kept in inhumane conditions, though it seems to me that humane conditions for a fish would be putting it in water rather than out on the sidewalk. Archie Bunker said years ago that the best pet is a goldfish, because it dies way before you get tired of it.
This is a logical extension of not understanding the creative God of the universe — a vain attempt to bring meaning to a life that is claimed to be accidental. You are more important than a fish, than a cow, than a bird. Now, to be clear, we should be the ultimate environmentalists in the sense that we should not abuse God's creation and we should seek to understand it. But we must also understand that God placed us here, gave us a calling, and gave us dominion over all things. He said to rule. God made cows to eat, to milk, to serve humanity.
I read this morning about California's fast rail project being rerouted through the middle of farmland because it came up against a bird sanctuary. Here is all this farmland being torn up on one side, and a bird sanctuary on the other — and the birds will go somewhere else. We go to Cannon Beach almost every summer. For years, on the Fourth of July, everybody went down to that long, flat stretch of beach and fired fireworks. That all stopped five years ago because there is a bird sanctuary on the rock offshore, and the fireworks were found to be alarming to the birds. It might ruffle their feathers for the night, but they are still out there on those rocks. You are more important than a bird, a duck, a goat, and certainly a cat.
The Unique Calling of Humanity
The third uniqueness is your calling. Genesis 1, verse 28 says, "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'" This is before the fall. We work, we cultivate, we create, we develop. God placed you here with purpose and design, and all that goes with it.
The Unique Morality of Humanity
The fourth way you are unique is in morality. You have a sense of right and wrong bred into you. In Genesis chapter 2, verses 16 and 17, God gives humanity a moral command — something He gives to no other part of creation. He says, "From any tree of the garden you may freely eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." You and I have a sense of morality, of rightness and wrongness. There is a spirituality to us, a sense of something bigger than ourselves. You never see a group of javelina carving images to something greater than themselves. Other than a cat worshiping itself, you never see an animal out there worshiping. That sense of morality is distinctly human.
The Uniqueness of How God Completed Us
Look at chapter 2, verse 18: "Then God said, it is not good for man to be alone, so I'll make a helper suitable for him." This is the first malediction in the creation account. Everything up to this point has been a benediction — it is good, it is good, it is good, it is very good. Now for the first time something is declared not good.
That word translated "helper" is also used to describe God Himself. It is not a demeaning word. It carries the idea of completion, of needing one another.
"So out of the ground, the Lord God formed the beasts of the fields and the birds of the sky and brought them to man to see them, and He would call them whatever He called the living creature. That was His name. And man gave names to all the cattle and the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field, but for Adam there was no helper found suitable for him." Adam is all alone. He goes through the whole animal kingdom — there's a dog, there's an elephant, too big — and still no helper suitable for him.
"So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept, and He took out one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman that rib which He had taken from the man and brought her to the man. And the man said, this is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined with his wife and the two shall become one flesh."
There is a completion that takes place. God created mankind — male and female. Dr. Grudem points out in chapter 22 of his Systematic Theology that the creation of male and female reflects the image of God in at least three ways: first, for harmonious personal relationship; second, the idea of equality in importance; and third, the difference in roles.
The Trinity as the Model for Marriage
Consider how this all works together, modeled for us in the Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are absolutely equal and eternal in existence, and yet the Son submits Himself to the Father. He is still fully God. He does not give up His Godhood or relinquish it — He voluntarily yields to the Father. We see this in the garden, where He prayed that if there were any other way than going to the cross, the Father would provide it, yet concluded: "Father, not my will but Your will be done. I came to do the will of the Father."
As God creates us male and female, He establishes an order for how we come together. This is not complicated. God is very clear about the distinction between how He creates man and woman and how they are joined.
When we get to Ephesians 5, here is what He says: "Wives, submit to your husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church." That is the order for marriage. It is not a matter of equality or importance — Father and Son are of equal value but have different roles. See how it all flows from creation. That is God's plan.
God does not say men are better than women or women lesser than men. That is not what He speaks to in terms of community or culture. But within the context of marriage — just as children are to obey their parents — husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, and wives are to submit to their husbands. That is God's design for marriage, and that is how marriage works.
God's Design for Marriage and Collision with Culture
Based on this, and apparently based on the news we watch, we should retrace this clearly: God's plan for marriage is permanent, monogamous, and heterosexual. God's design is not for two men or two women to marry. That is one of those areas where you are in direct collision with the culture.
I received an email some time ago, and I will read it to you. "Dear Tom, my partner and I recently moved to Arizona, Gilbert to be exact, and we are looking for a church to attend. We are an openly gay couple. We have been together five years and we want to attend a church in which we will in no way feel uncomfortable about our sexuality. East Valley Bible Church is near our home and would therefore be most convenient. How does your congregation feel about homosexuality? Your input will be helpful."
It does not even matter how the congregation feels, and frankly it does not matter how I feel. What does God say about it? That is the only question that matters. And this is genuinely tough, because right now even addressing the issue is so explosive that simply saying "here is what God says" can get you labeled as homophobic.
But it is the same as any other issue — gossip, or anything else. Here is what God calls homosexuality: sin. He does not call it a legitimate expression of one's sexuality. He calls it sin — a distortion of what He created. How do I feel about that? I feel about it the same way I feel about gossip or any other sin. I certainly do not think it is any worse. In fact, I would rather have this man and his partner here than some people who are here gossiping, yipping, yapping, and being factious. In both cases, though, I would rather see people repent and recognize that this is not what God wants.
So it is not a matter of feeling comfortable. You should feel welcome here. But I would be disappointed in us if someone were openly and unrepentantly engaged in sin — whatever that sin is — and felt entirely comfortable. You should feel welcome, and yet almost every week there should be that sense where you think, "I just thought..."
Made in the Image of God
We want to declare the truth, and yet we want so much to be able to say, "God loves you, He loves you, He created you, and we care for you." But the reality is, whatever the sin — it doesn't even matter what it is — we cannot condone it. Not because we don't like you. If we didn't like you, the easy thing would be to say nothing. It is precisely because we love you that we have to speak.
Susan has cancer, and we have people we don't even know sending us blenders and mixers, doctors who work out of their vans and make house calls. They don't even know me, they don't even know Susan, but they care and love her so much that they want to provide some relief — maybe a cure. Nothing wrong with that. If you love somebody, you act.
Setting aside homosexuality and gossip for a moment: if you have somebody who doesn't know Christ, the loving thing to do is not to try to make them feel better about their spirituality. It is to confront them in a loving way with the claims of Christ, the uniqueness of Christ. Because at the end of this life, no matter how good or bad they behave, if someone is in an ongoing, openly gay, sexually active experience, the presumption is they are not a believer — and if they are, discipline is coming. The same principle applies to open, unrepentant gossip, or to treating your body carelessly when God says your body is a temple. That is sin. I do not want you to feel comfortable about it, but I do want you to feel the tension.
Our Sixth Distinction: Made in His Image
Sarah told me after the first service that I did not make the sixth point, so let me make it now. We are unique in our image. It comes at the end of chapter 1, verses 26 and 27. We are made in the image of God, we rule over His creation, and that makes us distinct from everything else.
In his discussion on this, James Boyce points out three things that being made in the image of God means. He says it means you have personality, morality, and spirituality. Personality means I have feelings, knowledge, and a will — I am linked to God in a special way and I have a religious affection; I worship. That is not something you see in a dog, a whale, or a blade of grass. There is also a sense of morality — of freedom and responsibility, of rightness and wrongness — and then there is a sense of spirituality.
If you want to go deeper, I encourage you to look at the book on doctrine, or Wayne Grudem's systematic theology, or commentaries on Genesis, or resources online. There is far more material on this than I can cover here, and I do not want to simply read back to you a book you already own.
The Inherent Value God Places on You
Here is the big practical point: what does it mean that we are created in the image of God? It means God has established our value — that we have inherent value because of who created us and the worth He places on us. If you say this is all an accident, the only thing you can do is assign some arbitrary value to mankind based on your best guess. But God values you. God created you. We are valuable because of who created us, and we are His creation.
I was watching Pawn Stars the other night, and a man brings in a spoon. Rick asks what he has, and the man says it is a spoon made by Paul Revere. Rick looks at it, says it looks real, but he needs to bring somebody in to authenticate it. The appraiser first checks whether the metal and the design fit the colonial period — and confirms that they do. But the spoon is marked only with the name "Revere." I did not know this until the other night, but there was both a Paul Revere Sr. and a Paul Revere Jr., and both were silversmiths. If the spoon is from Paul Revere Jr., it is worth — I will make a number up — five thousand dollars. If it is by Paul Revere Sr., it is worth five hundred. The man who brought it in did not know if it was real. It meant a great deal to him because his father had given it to him. But ultimately he wanted to know: how much can I get for it? The appraiser determined it was Paul Revere Jr. — five thousand dollars. The point is this: you were created and valued, and the assessment was placed on you by the God who created the universe. You are not a knockoff.
Just this morning, going through the news before coming over, I saw a story on USA Today. What is believed to be the only surviving authenticated portrait of Billy the Kid went up for auction in Denver. It is the only one. Take a guess at what it sold for. William Cook paid 2.3 million dollars for it — because it is the only one. We assign extraordinary value based on rarity and origin.
Your value is not in what you did or did not do, whether you are a success or a failure. It is the value that God placed on you.
Created, Not Self-Made
Some of you are here today saying, "I'm nothing." And God is saying, "No, I created you. You have value. I love you." And some of you are going, "I'm really something." And He is saying, "Wait a minute. You are a created being. You didn't do anything." You might look at your whole list of achievements, and He is saying, "Apart from Me, you can't do anything."
You were born at this time, you were born in this place, you were given that gift, that talent. Some of you are very handsome and some of you are very pretty — you shouldn't feel especially proud of that. It's a sperm and an egg. It would be like me feeling bad that I'm short. I didn't pick it. If I had my pick, I would have chosen 6'4", maybe 6'5". But it doesn't matter. I can't control my height. I can control my width, and I don't even do that.
You can't control where you were born. You were born here. You weren't born in Calcutta. The perfect example of this is Prince William. That man has done absolutely nothing. He was born a prince. Paris Hilton has done nothing, zero — she's a Hilton. And that's not to put her down. I'm just saying: why would you walk around thinking you are something special because of that?
So if you're walking around saying, "I'm a failure, I'm awful, I have no value" — and really you're waiting for someone to tell you otherwise — God comes along and says, "No. I have value for you. I created you. You're made in My image. You have intrinsic value." Or if you're walking around thinking you're really something, understand that your success is not your own. When Rush Limbaugh says "talent on loan from God," though I don't think he understands all the implications of it, he's right.
If I reach into my back pocket and grab some money, to be absolutely technical I would say: this is money that God owns but has transferred possession to me — not ownership — and therefore I have a fiduciary relationship with Him to steward it well. That's hard to say every time, so I just say it's my money. But you get it. This is your life that God has given you. And these may be the exact words you need to hear today: God really loves you.
What It Means to Be Made in God's Image
So let me lay out what it ultimately means that we are made in the image of God — that we are, in a sense, mirrors of Him.
Number one, there is a morality to us. We live out God's law and ethics. That's what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 12:13 — having heard all this information, "fear God, keep His commandments." God has given us, and I believe this, His word in this book, and if I follow it, my life will be better.
I once taught a Sunday message on marriage, and afterward a couple came up to me — an older couple. The woman said, "We've been married 60 years." I said, "Wow, that's wonderful. What's your secret?" And she said, "Well, you just taught it." She was right. You know people who don't know Christ, who reject the Bible, but who unknowingly use biblical principles in raising their kids, in their marriage, in their finances — and it works. Why? Because God's principles work.
He has given us this morality. There are something like 613 commandments in the Old Testament, and He said, "If you follow these things, your life is going to be better." Not perfect. It doesn't mean your kids won't get sick, it doesn't mean your wife won't die, because we live in a sinful world among sinful people — even the best of us still sin. But He said, "Follow this, and your life will be better."
Purpose, Relationship, and Mission
Here is the second thing: we have purpose in our lives. Before the fall we worked; after the fall we still worked. We are creative. But now we have the capacity to do good or to do bad with that creativity. I can be creative like Leonardo da Vinci, or I can be creative like Bernie Madoff. Either way, I have purpose. God has you here for a reason — to work, to cultivate, to preserve, to steward your time, energy, resources, the environment, and the culture around you.
Here is the third thing: it is relational. We are here to be in community, like the triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — eternal, coming together in harmony.
And most importantly, I think, we are here missionally. We are part of God's redemptive story. On page one and two, He creates. Then in just a couple of verses, we sin. The rest of the story is redemption and restoration. So even now, as God's people — and I believe most of you in this room know Christ as your Lord and Savior — that means you understand creation, you understand the fall, and you understand that God is redeeming.
God's Ongoing Restoration
Even now, He is in the process of restoring. Even those of us who know Christ are not yet what we will be. We are born again and into this relationship, but everything is distorted.
God said — and we looked at it in Genesis 2:15–17 — do not eat from the tree. And they do. What happens is that the marvelous creation we read about in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, that beautiful creation, man and woman so innocent, so perfectly open — at the end of chapter 2 it says the man and his wife were both naked and unashamed. They had nothing to hide from each other: physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally. But all of a sudden, sin changes all of that.
If you are here next Sunday morning, I will walk you through Genesis chapter 3 and what the fall does.
Responding to These Truths
For us, we look at something like this — at least I hope we look at something like this — and we say, I need to respond. We respond in three ways. We respond here for the next few minutes, we respond through communion, and we respond through worship.
But then the response is really all week long. It is you becoming a display case — missional living, meaning you are on a mission from God. You are communicating His story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration to the world around you all week long.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for these amazing, awesome truths — that You created us, that You made us in Your image, that there is something unique about us. God, I pray that as Your people, the world would look at us and see You. Father, thank You for that awesome, amazing truth. And now as we come to communion, we come to that moment where we remember the moment of redemption. God, make that real to us. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.