Imago Dei
Transcript
Morning. We're in our second week of our series in Genesis. We're going to spend some time walking verse by verse through this book. It is the first book in the Bible. We're going to be on page one of your Bibles today. We're going to be in Genesis chapter one.
So if you want to grab your Bibles and go there. And you have some deeply held convictions about the nature of humanity. You have some deeply held convictions about human rights. And I don't know if you think about them a lot. Sometimes some people work in certain industries or they're fighting for certain causes. And so they think about basic human rights often.
But many of us don't. We just take these for granted. We understand that this is how this works. If a politician began running for office and they announced that they were pro-cannibalism. You would immediately be like, well, I'm not voting for you. And you maybe haven't thought about cannibalism very often.
But you didn't take much time to know you're anti-cannibalism. Like you don't. You're not on board with that. If they started saying they were pro. They were going to. Hey, like they came and said, hey, I think the purge.
I watched that movie and I like it. And I think that's a really good idea, honestly. And I was thinking maybe just like a two-week purge in the summer. Maybe one around the holidays. Like we would immediately be like, no, we're not. We can't do this.
Nobody can sign on for this. Because we have these deeply held convictions about human rights. About how we ought to treat people who are not in positions of power. How we ought to treat people who have different backgrounds culturally. How different stage of life. We have these deeply held convictions.
And so what we're going to look at today is why do we have these? Where are they founded? How do we know that they're real and true? Because they are a part of our lives. And they are assumed. But what I want us to see this morning is that they come directly from the scriptures.
And without the doctrine, without the understanding of the origin of life that we're going to look at today, you actually lose basic human rights. So what we're going to do is we're going to study this passage in Genesis 1. We're going to zoom in on something we looked at last week. We're going to talk about how human rights grows up out of this. And then we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about failures in this today. Because of sin, there are failures here.
And so we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about how we ought to engage with those as Christians. So let's pray. And then we'll move into Genesis 1. God, we thank you for this time we have together as your people to study your word. We pray for all of those who come in here hurting, who come in here confused about what to do next or how to respond to life as it is. And we pray that in these moments we would not just interact with your word, but that we would interact with you.
That your Holy Spirit would be at work in us for our good and your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. But it's Genesis 1, verse 26. If you're new to your Bible, like I said, Genesis, the first book of the Bible is on page 1. When we say chapter, we mean the big number. And when we say verse, we mean the little number that's kind of smushed down in the text.
So we're going to be in Genesis 1, verse 26. As we pick up here, we're in the first creation account. So Genesis 1 gives us a creation account. Genesis 2 kind of zooms in, gives us another creation account, kind of walks us through in kind of a more intense fashion. So next week we'll get to spend more time talking about creation.
We kind of set it up last week, said that there's some different ways to approach it. We're going to continue that next week. But what we see in this place where we're picking up is that the pattern has been this. God says, and it is, and then God sees that it's good. So God says something.
He says, let there be light, and there was light. It doesn't say, God said there be light, and then he has to kind of go for it. No, when he speaks it, it happens. And so we see that this, God says it is, and then he sees that it's good. And then it says there's evening, there's morning, the first day. And this is kind of the pattern that goes.
God says it's good, and then evening and morning. God says, there it is, it's good, evening and morning. So that's the pattern. We pick up, it just ended at day five. It says there's evening and morning, the fifth day. And then in day four, in day six, he begins to bring forth living creatures.
And it says this, then God said, this is verse 26, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them, that's humanity, that's what he means by man there. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So there's this pause, there's this break in the flow where God begins to speak, and he says, let us make man in our image. And so we as Christians see a reference to the Trinity there. This is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, speaking inside the Godhead and saying, we're going to make humanity different and distinct from all the rest of creation.
And so God makes humanity in his image, and places humanity below God, but above everything else in creation. Verse 27, So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it. We're a young church with a lot of young families, and I think we've been doing pretty well with the be fruitful and multiply. I just want to say I'm proud of y'all.
Fill the earth and subdue it. We spent some time talking about that recently with the idea of work and how we're designed to have dominion over the earth. And it says, Have dominion over the earth, over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So, humanity is distinct above all creation. And we know this. We believe this.
We feel this. And this, every once in a while I'll get on Craigslist, and I kind of just think, Let me see what kind of dogs people are selling. I just get interested, and maybe every once in a while I think I want to have a pet. I don't, but every once in a while I think I do. And I think I do until somebody in our church goes out of town, and they're like, Hey, can you watch my dog? And then I watch it, and I'm like, No, I don't want one of these.
Children make it hard enough to go out of town. I don't want to have a dog that I have to deal with also. But I get on there every once in a while, and I'll look and see what they have, and people will say, like the little Craigslist thing will be, Hey, I'm moving to a new place. Got transferred from my job. I'm needing to move into a one-bedroom house. They don't allow pets, and so I need to re-home my dog.
I love my dog. This is the best dog the world has ever known. It's crate-trained, and I love it, but I can't take it with me. That happens all the time, on Craigslist. That may not be true. That dog might bite everyone, and they're not actually moving, but that's the list thing you see.
I've never gotten on there and seen one that said, Hey, I'm having to relocate to another part of the town. I've actually lost my job. I'm having to get a job that doesn't pay as much. I'm really going to need to move into a one-bedroom apartment, and so I'd like to give up my eight-year-old Ian. He's great. We love him.
He's in the second grade. He can read pretty well, but we're just going to have to move, and it would be best for us if he didn't come, and he's crate-trained. You don't see that, you don't see that, because we know that if you're going to have to get rid of something, your children aren't on the chopping block. You've got to get rid of the dog. You've got to get rid of the parakeet and the fish, but you can't get rid of it. We know this is distinct and different.
We value this, and even for those people who come in and say, No, I think, and we mentioned this last week, but I think everybody comes from an evolutionary process, that all humanity grows out of this process, this long process of this creature turning into this creature, and then into this creature, and then into this creature, and then into this creature, and now we have humanity, and what we actually said last week is that there is room for a theistic evolution. This derails some parts of evolution, though. Humanity does not come in the line of creation. It does not come in the line of livestock.
It is distinct and set apart, so there is some room for there's some microevolution for some changes in, and we're going to spend more time on this next week, but this messes this up because God has made humanity distinct and separate, set apart as something different, and we know this. We don't treat animals the same. I was sitting there in my house, looking out my back window, and I like squirrels. I've owned squirrels periodically throughout my life. I'm watching the squirrels in my backyard. I like having squirrels in my backyard.
We actually raised four and set them loose in our backyard. I used to, when I'd go out there and talk on the phone, they would jump on you, which was great for me, weird for people who visited. So I'm watching the squirrel. He's eating. And out of nowhere, this hawk just goes, snatches him up, squirrels flipping around, and just takes off. And you know what I did?
Whoa. That was pretty cool. I like squirrels, but that was crazy. Now, flip that around. If I was facing out the front of my house, I'm across the street from a playground, and if I saw like an athletic 25-year-old do that to a six-year-old and just snatch him up and take off running, I wouldn't have been like, whoa. My response would have been a little differently.
I wouldn't have texted someone and be like, you wouldn't believe what I just saw. And they'd be like, what did you do? And I'd be like, what? We all know we're going to lose some young if they get separated from the herd. Predators will find them. Nobody, I wouldn't say that.
The response is different. I'm heading across the field. I'm going to go figure out what's going on. I'm calling the police, but I didn't call and say, you guys, there's a hawk and it just ate a squirrel. We don't do that. That hawk is not going to go to trial, is not going to get arrested.
How to Catch a Predator is a different show than National Geographic. You don't ever see the cheetah chasing and all of a sudden the person who was filming shoot it with a rifle and be like, I saved you gazelle, you're welcome. That doesn't happen. We just watch it eat it and they're like, neat. Because humanity is distinct from the rest of creation and we know this because of this. That God intentionally poured his image into humanity.
That humanity is made in the image of God and has the Mark of God on us and this is what this means. Because humans are made in the image of God, therefore, all humans have value and are worth loving, pursuing, defending, and serving. Because humanity is made in the image of God, all humans have value and are worth loving, pursuing, defending, and serving. You can add any other words you want to to that. I grabbed a few to try to help us wrap this picture around the fact that it doesn't matter what skin tone you have, it doesn't matter which gender you are, male, female, pink skin, tan skin, brown skin, this language, that language, this type of food, spicy food, bland British food, it doesn't matter. made in the image of God, worth loving, worth serving, worth defending.
Now here's what happens with this. One of the things that comes along with this concept is that we have purpose. Because we are made by God for a purpose in His image, then we have purpose, we have value. One of the things that has happened, come along in culture, is this idea that you need to create your own purpose. That you need to look inside yourself and find your purpose. You need to figure out who you are, you need to make your own purpose.
And so many people in our culture right now are languishing under the weight of having to prove that they have value when the text tells us that you have value because God designed you and put His image in you. Made you in His image for His glory and placed you here on purpose. That you do not have to prove your value. And here's what happens. This is the foundation for human rights. That humans are distinct from creation, distinct from creatures, distinct from the animals, that we aren't just in a long chain of that and that we all have value because God's placed value in humanity.
This is the foundation for human rights and so here's what happens. If we have the idea that we came out of nothingness, this is chaos, it all just swirled into what we have now and just by chance after chance after chance after chance after chance after chance our world won the lottery and here we are. we lose the foundation of human rights because if you have to find your own purpose it means that we don't just have to find our own purpose, we have to find and create our own morality as well. I want to read a law professor from Yale Law School whose name is Arthur Allen Leff and he's just interacting with this idea that if you have a God morality makes sense. Some rules that we all have to follow make sense and if you don't if you remove God from the picture if this isn't actually how this happened then laws and rules and morality we don't really have a leg to stand on.
He actually says that he uses a phrase that he says you'll find in bar rooms and schoolyards which is says who. You can't do that. That's not fair. That isn't how you should treat people and he says the response is says who? You and what army? And he says if there's a God you have an answer to the says who and if there isn't you don't have an answer.
I want to read this quote it'll be up here. God's will is binding because it is his will that it be. He just spent some time talking about in the scriptures you'll see God says and it is that whenever he says something it automatically exists. That when he speaks something he speaks it into existence so that if God says it is wrong to do this or if it is right to do this it is. It is wrong. It is right.
He's the only one who can speak in that way. Under what other circumstances can the unexamined will of anyone else withstand the cosmic says who and come out similarly dispositive? Meaning that God can say this is how this works this is what is right this is what is wrong and we just have to take it because he's God. But nobody else gets to do that. We examine it and we decide what we think. There are no such circumstances.
We are never going to get anywhere in ethical or legal theory unless we finally face the fact that in the psalmist's words there was no one like unto the Lord. If he does not exist there is no metaphoric equivalent. No person no combination of people no document however hallowed by time no process no premise nothing is equivalent to an actual God in this central function as the unexaminable examiner of good and evil. The so-called death of God turns out not to have been just his funeral it also seems to have affected the total elimination of any coherent or even more than momentarily convincing ethical or legal system.
Just his funeral it also seems to have affected the total elimination of any coherent or even more than momentarily convincing ethical or legal system. So what he's saying is this God gets to answer the question of the grand says who he gets to speak into existence morality he gets to say this is right and this is wrong and if you remove him from the picture then nobody else
There is no other equivalent you can't move the US government over there you can't move the UN over there you can't move nobody else fits into that equation where they can just speak and it's unexamined. He kind of finishes with this he says put briefly if the law meaning this morality this ruling over us is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky then it can only be one place
In us as things stand now everything is up for grabs so if we believe that we grew out of the strong eat the weak survival of the fittest the smartest the strongest the baddest the toughest the biggest need to breed and pass on their genes and the rest need to be weeded out you cannot build a system of global human rights off of that you can build a system of local ones
You can say our government works best if we don't allow murder so you can say that it's best for the United States to have rules and laws but you cannot make the argument that it's not a good idea for the United States and the USSR during the Cold War to just annex everything on the planet and say we own you now and if you don't like that we're going to destroy you because they're more powerful and that's how the system ought to work you cannot
Say this is wrong this is unfair without acknowledging the fact that you have nothing to base it off of for example most people in the United States think that females should have rights be able to drive be able to vote have opinions I agree I think that's good I distinctly and specifically agree whether I had a choice or not because the scripture says he made male
And female in his image and to deny that is to deny what this says but here's what happens we want to outsource this all over the world people who don't believe in God want to take this idea all over the world and so what happens is people will say well we know that women should have rights and we know that they should be treated this way we know it okay but for the majority of the population and the majority
Of the human history we haven't known that and much many many places across the world do not know that and so what happens is when you lose the grand says who when you lose the ability to say this is why this is true when you outsource it when you go over to Saudi Arabia or Libya and say no this is not how to treat a woman this is how women are supposed to be treated these are the rights they're supposed to have
All you really are doing is taking a very aggressively deep held opinion equivalent to whether or not pineapple should be on pizza it's an opinion if I told you that I was going to go to Saudi Arabia and I was going to make sure that they got rid of the ridiculous clothes they wore and the nasty tasting food they had started eating cheeseburgers and pizza and wearing blue jeans because they're all better you would say how on earth are you going to act like your culture
Just wipes their culture out but then we'll say they need to treat women this way and act like that's in a separate category and it is if you're over here where God created humanity in his image and it's not if you're over here in a big line of chaotic everything I weigh 220 pounds my wife weighs 100 pounds if I'm over here who's to say how she's treated if I'm over here it's different now you could say well we have laws
We have regulations but all you end up getting to do is appealing to power might makes right which was the argument I was making you say well the police will come in and they're more mighty than you we can say racism is wrong and we just know it it's common sense but the truth is for the majority of history and the majority of the population of the earth that hasn't been just known or made sense we can say
That a stronger nation shouldn't just plow over a weaker one and overtaken it but the truth is for the majority of the population and the majority of history that's exactly how that's worked and it's made the most sense so you can say that Russia should not annex the nation next to it named Georgia but without this it's hard to back up your argument and so for many of us what we'll say is no no no no I know this
You just want to argue with this you're like I know this to be true and the truth is I agree with you and the reason that so many people who believe this stand over here with us on human rights issues is because God made us in his image and we can't shake it it's been marred by sin but we can't shake the fact that we know that humans are distinct and different from the rest of creation and Christians have modeled this forever Christianity came in and immediately began
To interact with and adjust how the world viewed women how it viewed other races one of the most beautiful things that happens in the early church is the holy kiss we don't know much about it we read it and are sometimes like well that's weird because they'll say greet each other with a holy kiss here's what the holy kiss was in that time period when the church got started when people greeted
Each other on the street they would greet each other with a kiss so if you were of equal level with one another you kissed kind of cheeks we're equal if you were in higher status you could hold out your hand and they would kiss your hand and that demonstrated to everyone when y'all met this person is lower than me and if they were very low they could kiss your feet they'd bow down at your feet and Christianity comes in and goes nope
Everybody gets kissed on the face I don't care what your money is I don't care what your race is I don't care if you're a slave or free I don't care it's a holy kiss and it was this symbolic picture of what the gospel had done and Christianity began to do this very early on because Jesus came and he redeemed humanity he loved humanity made in his image so much that he would die
For us Christians immediately began to model this and how they cared for the poor there's a letter from the Roman Emperor Julian who's writing in the 4th century and he says this he calls Christianity in here and he calls it atheism because Christians only believed in one God and that was a big problem for everybody so you would say well of course all these gods are gods and Christianity would just be like
Nope can't play your game just the one so they called them atheists they were mad at them he says this atheism has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers and through their care for the burial of the dead it is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar and that the godless Galileans that's the Christians care not only for their own poor
But for ours as well while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them what he says is part of the problem with these Christians is they don't just take care of their poor people they take care of our poor people too which is crazy but it's helped them grow but see this idea that poor people didn't have worth was rampant and then Christians came along and said no Christians and the Jewish
People who also believe this no every person's made in the image of God and is therefore valuable worthy of loving serving pursuing defending that's how hospitals began was Christians serving those who couldn't get medical help medical help was given to those who were wealthy Christians started just giving it to everybody there are actually stories where there were plagues
In cities and people were just dumping out someone in their family would get sick they would just put them out on the street or whole people were just leaving cities and the only people that were going back in were Christians started caring for the sick that weren't even theirs because they believed that this is a person made in the image of God and the truth is if I get the plague and die I have a great king that I'm about to meet
What we're about to do is going to be distinctly political so it should be fun y'all like being uncomfortable I assume the reason it's going to be distinctly political is we're going to talk about human issues and human issues always get pushed to the forefront of politics as they should sometimes I'll hear people say well Jesus wasn't political and that's true he didn't run for office he did ride a donkey one time
But he didn't he didn't run for office there we go but he always engaged in political issues one of the reasons he was killed was for political reasons they said he was setting himself up to be a king he was accused of undercutting the power system that the Pharisees had and the balance between them and Rome but the reason he was always interacting with political issues is because he was always interacting with humans on their level
In their lives and in human issues you will find politics so what we're about to do is take this idea that every human is made in the image of God and is therefore valuable and we're just going to apply it to some areas where we see it breaking down currently where we see conflict where we see frustration where we see a divide in the aisle and we're just going to try to point out and say here's how we ought to approach this and understanding that every human
Is valuable we're just going to push it into that area some of these will be handled more quickly than others the whole goal is for us to draw our attention to the fact that Christians have forever engaged in image of God breakdowns in culture and that we are not called to do anything less the first one we're going to talk about is gender we see this playing out in two distinct
Ways culturally you see we've been told that gender is a cultural construct but we just read that it's a divine construct that God made man in his own image and he made them male and female that there is a distinction between males there is a distinction between females and it both hold the image of God and are meant
To put him on display so here's here's where this is falling apart in two places culturally one is we have kind of this idea that gender is fluid that there are no two genders that you can't figure that out by biology and there are a few exceptions that are actually
Mentioned in the Bible but God designed gender two distinct genders on purpose and so one of the areas that we're seeing this breakdown is that this is under attack is maybe a harsh word it is but it's disbelieved and aggressively disbelieved and so we as Christians have to hold to
The fact that no there are two distinct genders but the other way that this is breaking down is that those in our culture who struggle with gender dysphoria those that are transgender in our culture are at increased likelihood for sexual assault they are four times more likely to attempt or to commit
Suicide and Christianity cannot just join in looking at those who are struggling and hurting and made in the image of God cannot just join in to aggressively chant you're wrong when we're called to distinctly love pursue defend and serve that there are those
Who in the middle of this are told that you have to create your own value you have to find out who you are you have to make yourself have worth that those in the transgender community the suicide rate does not change
Prior to or after transition because a lot of times they transition continue to face outside pressure but also continue to face the inside pressure that this didn't fix them and we as Christians know that they're made in the image of God and Jesus loved them
So much that he would die for them and they have value and they're worth loving pursuing defending and serving while we also uphold the truth that there are two distinct genders this is a gender issue as well but I want to we're going to give it a different word women this is a
Current cultural it is it has been a forever problem because God's good design was broken by sin and in God's good design men have been larger created larger stronger have thicker bone density tendon density muscle mass and therefore have gotten away with a lot of
Things they shouldn't have gotten away with that are heinous and evil throughout the history of the world because they've taken advantage of females who God designed in his good design to reflect his glory not as big so that we have the me too movement and I
Celebrate and applaud even where it has been painful and we have seen it cropping up in places where Christians are and in churches where there has been sexual assault and pressure we ought not to just discount everyone who comes forward with this but we ought to celebrate the fact that a voice has been given where there was no
Voice in history no voice attempted rapes and completed rapes according to RAIN which is the largest anti-sexual violence 90% of that is towards females 82% of the total rapes that take place or attempted rapes are towards juvenile females who are often in a position of lacking power lacking a
Voice if you are a female and you are 18 to 24 and you are in college you are three times more likely to face sexual assault if you are not in college you are four times more likely to face sexual assault than other females one out of six women in our nation has either
Been raped or someone has attempted to rape them and this is not okay that we have such a breakdown caused by sin in the image in the image of God that masculinity which was designed by God in the way he designed it
For protection for defense I'm meant to be bigger than my wife so that I can meet whomever's coming in the door so that I might carry more than she I'm meant to do this and it has been twisted and it's not okay we ought not grow tired of the me too movement we ought not discount it
Out of hand because on the other end of it is a human made in the image of God who has been harmed by sin and Christians are meant to swoop in and defend and love and pursue and serve thirdly the unborn and the orphan since day one Christians have joined in
This it was very common in the Roman Empire for a child that was born that was unwanted to be put over to exposure which just meant they would take a child and they would place them out where they might be destroyed die by lack of food
Lack of shelter and Christians knew where these drop off sites were and they began showing up and adopting a lot of females and any child born with a deformity and taking them home because Christians from day one have believed all humans are made in the image
Of God and therefore worth immense value loving protecting pursuing there are about 750,000 illegal abortions in the United States every year according to the CDC that is the equivalent of someone on the first day of school walking into every public school in the
State of South Carolina and gunning every child down since a legalized abortion in the United States there have been 45 million legal abortions there was an article that recently ran by CBS and it said that Denmark it says Down syndrome is disappearing in Iceland you click on
The article and basically the article was about the fact that they do prenatal screenings in Iceland and 98% of children that are prenatally screened to have Down syndrome the pregnancy is terminated they were interviewing I watched this interview and they were interviewing one
Of the ladies that counsels the women in the situations and they said what do you tell the ladies that are in the situation she said tell them this is your life and you have the right to choose how your life will look and that's
True over here but it's not true over here and here's the thing Christians if this changes and as ladies currently choose to not have abortions an unwanted preborn child is an unwanted child and Christians need to be
Adopting there are 400,000 children in the foster system currently and we cannot chant protect the unborn protect the unborn and then care nothing for those children that are starving
And care nothing for the children that are in foster care and care nothing for the children that go home every weekend and don't eat a meal because their parents decided to keep them when that was not a
Financially viable situation we're called to do both all humans are made in the image of God and therefore are given irrevocable value and are worth loving pursuing defending and serving we have two more racial injustice
Systematic racial injustice this isn't just garden variety racism this is what has been brought to the forefront currently consistently in the United States we act as if this is new if you watch videos and riots now they look similar to the 60s we've lapped back around on some
Things they were similar to the ones before that you cannot I don't believe that you can coherently or intelligently act as if the United States does not have historic issue with racism a nation that grew wealthy off of the backs of slaves
And that up until 50 years ago was actively oppressing and removing the right to vote from those who are of different skin color and then to act as if that should have flipped around in a generation I do believe a lot
Of it has gotten better I think a lot of it is still systematically at work to cause problems now our church is predominantly white and I do not believe that if you are white you are racist I don't believe that I believe you might
Be I believe most of us lean towards we're comfortable with our color skin our cultural background our nationality and it makes it easier for us to look down on others but I do want to make the argument that if you are white it is easier in the United States for you to
Pay zero attention to this issue I like to make jokes about people who have gluten allergies and who are lactose intolerant it's really fun to be like oh does that spicy milk get to you they don't
Appreciate it but I think it's funny I didn't care anything about allergies and stuff other than the people that were around me like I wouldn't like if I was hanging out with my friend Raz who has a gluten allergy I wouldn't
Like dip a cracker in his soup or anything ridiculous like that but my son now has a milk protein intolerance so that when we feed him milk he throws up and now I care I am aware of
Where milk is I don't want it near him it's an issue that now matters and I think that if you're white in the United States because we have been the majority and we have been in power it is much easier to just say I
Don't see the problem and that's true because you've never drank spicy milk and you don't understand what the problem feels like so I've ceased to listen to the arguments and what I've got to say is that may be a very good approach if you
Were conservative that may be a very good approach for a Republican but much of the rhetoric is not Christian it is not about our nation it's about a kingdom and there are things that we need to as Christians get very very good at listening
To and walking in that we currently aren't because all humans are made in the image of God and therefore are given irrevocable value and are worth loving pursuing defending and serving this is the same issue but it's in a different area
I'm talking about refugees a refugee is someone who is displaced from their home due to poverty due to famine due to war due to violence 65 million people made in the image of our good
God loved enough by Jesus that he would die for them were sent away from their homes last year now that is a major national and international problem to take in people into your nation that do not speak your language
Do not hold your values do not agree with you on basic human rights in so many areas are not on the same page it is a major national international and national interest and issue when people are flooding over borders I understand
That it needs to be handled by those in politics with wisdom but it needs to be handled by Christians like Christians with a lot of grace and a lot of love understanding that these people were made in the image of God and we cannot deny
That this scripture does not tell us a skin tone of our first parents but it does give us the indication that all skin tones came from them it does not tell us the language of our
First parents but we know that all languages came from them it does not exactly tell us their location we know they're in the Middle East so if you want to make an argument for European
Superiority you are going to be in trouble when you meet Adam other than the fact that he messed everything up but Jesus was also Jewish and he fixed it we we are designed by God with value
And purpose and so is everyone else and we as Christians ought to be at work and at war with all the breakdowns in our culture these are a few there are many many more I have a few questions
For us as we finish out our time the first one is this I want you to ask do I undervalue myself you see because this isn't just a global truth it is a personal truth that you
Were made in the image of God I know in a room this size some of you are considering suicide I know some of you practice self harm I know some of you are languishing and being broken under the weight of I've
Got to prove my value and the truth is you do not you were given value when the God of the universe created humanity in his image and you are an image bearer of our God loved so
Much that Christ would die that you might be his that he might redeem you from your sin C.S. Lewis in his essay The Weight of Glory says this there are no ordinary people you have never talked to a mere
Mortal nations cultures arts civilizations these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat but it is to immortals with whom we joke work with marry snub and exploit immortal horrors
Or everlasting splendors this does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn or serious we must play but our merriment must be of the kind which exists between people who have from the very
Outset taken each other seriously no flippancy no superiority no presumption that you are not an ordinary mortal but you have been designed by a God to exist for eternity
And everyone you interact with the same questions that Christians ought to ask is who is marginalized or who is devalued when it comes to interacting with this image of God breakdown in our culture we need
To ask who is marginalized and who is devalued this is systematic this is who doesn't have a voice in our nation who doesn't have a voice who is in a minority but it's also who at work
Is marginalized and devalued who at your school is treated day after day after day and has to go home with the understanding day after
Day after day believing a lie that they don't have worth or they don't have value because of their intelligence because of their ability because
Of their looks when all of that is a lie because they were designed and made in the image of God with purpose and
Value who do you marginalize or who do I marginalize who do I devalue who isn't worth my time who's lower on the scale than I am who am
I biased towards who do I have negative connotations of these are all fair questions for us to ask as Christians as we investigate our heart when it comes
To our inability to walk this out well the band is going to come back up and I want to end with one main idea I know humans and I know this room and I
Know that these aren't these issues that we talked about aren't separate from us but that in this room we are those who have been
Assaulted and we're those who've committed assault and in this room we're those who have trampled the rights of others and in this room
We're we're those who are blatantly blindly racist or coming out of that and every time we think about it we feel shame crawl
Up our spine in this room we've had abortions we've hurt others we've lied about others we've maligned others we've irrevocably harmed others in
Three years in middle school we are image of God failures and offenders that each time we sin we give a broken picture of
What our God was designed to be like and how he was meant to care for our city and our world and how he was meant to
Subdue and how he designed us to give beauty to the world and each time we devalue women or each time we grow in our frustration and our hatred
Towards another race or another language or men we chip away at what was so beautiful you see the scriptures tell us we were made in God's image that Adam and Eve sinned and rebelled and that
Image didn't go away but it got marred and then it tells us in Colossians and in John that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God that he perfectly images God the way that we
Were designed to that he puts God on display in a way that humanity was meant to that he comes here and he so loves us that he dies for us that each time you think about
What you've done to someone or how you've harmed someone or how you've been harmed and each time you begin to believe that I deserve to die God agrees with you but he doesn't leave us there you see in Christ Jesus took our sin and died
For us that we might be forgiven because I know that in this room I listed off a whole bunch of issues and sins that we carry around with us and that we no longer have to carry if we're in Christ you see in this room we
Are blameless in this room if you are in Christ you are free in this room if you are in Christ you are spotless and beautiful washed and redeemed by the blood of Jesus that you might one day stand before the king and he might welcome you as a son or as a daughter he might wrap his arms around you and he
Doesn't know your sin he's forgiven your sin he's wiped it clean because Jesus Christ took it all and died for it so in this room and among the global ranks of the redeemed we engage where it's messy where it's difficult where we say the wrong things where we mess up our wording where we offend where we harm and we engage and we re-engage and we re-engage and we
Love and we serve and we pursue and we open our wallets and we open our time and we open our schedule and we open our hearts that we might love those who the world has lied to and told them they didn't have any value because we have a God who when we were valueless in our sin when we deserved death loved us enough to redeem us let's pray God we thank you that we are redeemed we
Thank you that in you we have hope we pray you'd forgive us for all the times we've trampled on those made in your image and all the times that we've robbed them of the glory you placed in them through our words through our actions we we've asked for your forgiveness for all the times God that we've blatantly aggressively lied about who you are by the way we've treated your world and we've treated others and we
Thank you that Jesus took all the pain and all the punishment that he suffered and was assaulted so that we might be clean that we might be forgiven that he died so that we might live we love you and we praise you Jesus name if you're a Christian in this room one of the ways that we celebrate the truth of the gospel is that we take communion which is where we take bread and we take the cup and see Jesus took these on the night before he died and he he took bread and he broke it he said this is my body
Broken for you he took the cup and he said this is the covenant of my blood poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins one of the ways that we remind ourselves that we are forgiven that we won't be crushed for our sin is that we take part in communion where he was crushed for our sin and his blood was poured out for our forgiveness that we are washed clean that we are made new and if you're not a Christian communion isn't for you but if you belong to Christ it is and if you aren't a Christian and you've never placed your faith in him I would
Encourage you to do that today to trust him with your life and with your salvation with your forgiveness and then you may be free to take communion you pray you repent you talk to Jesus and then when you feel led if you're a Christian take communion otherwise we'll stand and sing you Christoph