WEBVTT 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:08.480 Well, good morning. 00:00:09.759 --> 00:00:24.719 I would be remiss if I didn't remind you, and some of you would say, Walt, you forgot it, that today is Sunday, the fifth of February, two thousand and seventeen, and today God is still on the throne. 00:00:24.879 --> 00:00:30.559 He was all last week, he is today, and he is on the throne in the week to come. 00:00:31.039 --> 00:00:37.520 He is good, he is faithful, he is trustworthy, he is deserving all of our praise. 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:42.240 We may pray in faith, we may praise him for who he is. 00:00:42.479 --> 00:00:46.079 He rules, he reigns, and that's why we're here. 00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:48.719 I hope that's why you're here as well. 00:00:49.280 --> 00:01:09.439 We are continuing in our perusal, in our investigation, in our study, in our desire to sit under the teaching and the truth of God's word through the book of Genesis. 00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:21.519 So we're several weeks into a series that will take us roughly to Easter, the first three or four chapters in Genesis. 00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:25.359 So I'd like to have you turn, please, to Genesis chapter 1. 00:01:25.519 --> 00:01:35.599 That is on my Bible, page one, page two actually, this morning, chapter 1, verses 26 and following. 00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:49.599 We've been looking at this section, and uh especially of the six days of creation, the last couple of weeks, and it is a wonderful and it is a simple story, and it is true. 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:52.000 It does not mislead us. 00:01:52.319 --> 00:01:54.879 All that it says is from God. 00:01:55.120 --> 00:01:58.239 When God speaks, he does not mislead us. 00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:01.920 We find here things we would know in no other way. 00:02:02.319 --> 00:02:05.200 God reveals truth to us. 00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:13.520 And what we read is so simple and so clear that every child in our midst can understand it. 00:02:13.759 --> 00:02:20.960 And everyone in our midst can understand it and relate to it unless we make problems out of it. 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:33.919 And the problems we tend to make out of it come from our culture, it comes from a spirit of rationalism, it comes from a spirit of secularism, it comes from a spirit of scientism. 00:02:34.319 --> 00:02:46.479 So rationalism, the idea that we understand truth primarily, or if not perhaps even only through what we can comprehend and the logic and human reasoning. 00:02:46.879 --> 00:02:52.800 If that's as far as it goes in understanding the world around us, we miss the most important things. 00:02:53.039 --> 00:02:54.479 In the beginning, God. 00:02:54.879 --> 00:02:56.240 In the beginning, God. 00:02:57.039 --> 00:02:59.680 That we learn by revelation. 00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:11.120 Secularism, uh, basically the religious belief, and that's what it is, it's a belief system, it's a worldview, just as rationalism is a worldview. 00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:20.240 The belief system that religion gives no windows to other reality besides that which is around us. 00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:30.560 If we don't believe there are other windows to reality, then we will miss the central reality in the beginning, God and God created. 00:03:30.879 --> 00:03:40.400 And the section we're seeing today, God created man as the high point of creation and gave him that which is called the image of God. 00:03:40.879 --> 00:03:57.520 Scientism, something else of spirit of our age, have no problems with science, but the belief system that the only real way of understanding the world around us is through the scientific method, and any other approach is inherently flawed. 00:03:57.680 --> 00:04:00.240 That's a belief system, that's a religion. 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:05.120 Faith and science have no conflict with one another. 00:04:05.439 --> 00:04:11.680 Scientism, rationalism, secularism, that's what we struggle with. 00:04:11.919 --> 00:04:21.120 And what we're trying to do in this series of these first few chapters is to listen to what God has to say. 00:04:21.439 --> 00:04:33.519 If we miss what God has to say to us through his word, we are destined to bumble and stumble around and miss the most important things that are. 00:04:34.319 --> 00:04:41.920 So we've been looking at the six days of creation and jumping in at verse 26 of chapter 1, page 2. 00:04:42.560 --> 00:04:43.920 Page 2. 00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:50.399 Um, we're jumping at verse 26 into the sixth day of creation. 00:04:50.959 --> 00:05:05.439 And specifically in the middle of that, after letting the earth in verse 24 bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, and the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and the things that creep on the ground according to its kind, and God saw that it was good. 00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:18.160 And then, verse 26, God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness. 00:05:18.800 --> 00:05:35.199 Let them, mankind, that I am making, 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 living creature, creeping thing that creeps on the earth. 00:05:35.519 --> 00:05:41.759 So God created man, mankind, in his own image. 00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:45.519 In the image of God, he created him. 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:48.959 Male and female, he created them. 00:05:49.360 --> 00:06:01.199 God blessed them, and God said, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heaven, over every living thing. 00:06:01.439 --> 00:06:10.079 And God said, Behold, I give you every I give to you every plant, yielding seed that is in the face of the earth, and every tree with the seed in its fruit. 00:06:10.240 --> 00:06:24.240 You shall have them for food, and every beast of the earth, and every bird of the heavens, uh, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has breadth of life in it, I have given every green plant for food, and it was so. 00:06:42.319 --> 00:06:45.759 Evening and morning, the sixth day. 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:49.360 The high point of God's creation. 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:51.439 That's you and me. 00:06:52.399 --> 00:06:54.240 It's kind of hard to imagine. 00:06:54.800 --> 00:06:57.199 It's hard for me to imagine when I look in the mirror. 00:06:57.439 --> 00:06:59.839 It's hard for me to imagine when I look at you. 00:07:02.319 --> 00:07:07.120 The high point, the crescendo of creation, and God looked at it. 00:07:07.279 --> 00:07:10.959 Now, this is before sin came in to mar things. 00:07:11.199 --> 00:07:12.560 We're gonna be talking about that. 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:22.800 But at its core, mankind, apart from all of the rest of the created realm that we know anything about, stands at the pinnacle. 00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:45.600 So we want to explore this morning this idea of the defining characteristic, the defining truth of man, which, according to this passage, especially the first two or three verses that we're going to be looking at more than the others, we'll we'll come back in chapter two and reach back to some of this. 00:07:45.839 --> 00:07:57.360 But I want us to look this morning at this defining characteristic quality, that defining reality of mankind. 00:07:58.399 --> 00:08:01.759 We are created in the image of God. 00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:05.279 What in the world does that mean? 00:08:05.439 --> 00:08:07.120 The Imago Day. 00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:12.160 This has been something I know you don't know Latin, or if you do, you know more than I do. 00:08:12.399 --> 00:08:18.319 Um, but throughout the centuries, believers have wrestled with this. 00:08:18.639 --> 00:08:24.639 This is the definition, the most important way to understand who we are. 00:08:24.800 --> 00:08:26.399 So, what does it mean? 00:08:26.639 --> 00:08:28.639 The image of God in man. 00:08:30.079 --> 00:08:36.399 So, we're gonna take some time and try to unpack what this passage has to say about it. 00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:51.279 I got I got thinking as I was preparing this message, trying to focus on what I think is the most important thing that God is saying to us in these in these verses. 00:08:52.080 --> 00:08:59.120 And I think it is really the category of thought, the defining truth of the image of God in man. 00:08:59.360 --> 00:09:03.279 But I got thinking, okay, what's he really doing here? 00:09:03.440 --> 00:09:06.879 And I was taken back in my thinking to my childhood. 00:09:07.120 --> 00:09:14.399 You know, as you get older, you start fantasizing about the good old days, and uh in retrospect, they're better than they actually were. 00:09:14.879 --> 00:09:32.559 Um but and I've told you before, it's for some reason it sticks in my thinking, the experience multiple years as a little kid, sitting in the back seat of the car on a hot summer day as our family are on vacation and traveling to visit relatives. 00:09:36.480 --> 00:09:46.639 And I was sitting in the back seat, and my two older sisters had bony elbows, and we were squabbling, and there were so many things I learned in that, in retrospect. 00:09:46.879 --> 00:09:50.639 One of them was something that my mother very wisely did. 00:09:50.720 --> 00:09:52.720 This was the day before devices. 00:09:52.799 --> 00:09:58.320 You you didn't keep your kids quiet by handing them a Kindle fire or something like that. 00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:03.679 And so she came up with games for us to play, to occupy ourselves. 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:05.519 Uh, crazy songs to sing. 00:10:05.679 --> 00:10:09.039 Rufus, Rastus, Johnson Brown, what you gonna do when the rent comes round? 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:11.279 Jane says, please don't sing that, Walt. 00:10:13.679 --> 00:10:16.240 But I remember the game Twenty Questions. 00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:19.840 Does anybody remember playing Twenty Questions as a kid? 00:10:20.080 --> 00:10:21.519 You know, it's fascinating. 00:10:21.679 --> 00:10:23.919 So I got thinking about this game of 20 questions. 00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:35.600 The way it works, well, at least the way it worked for us, for me, in the backseat of the car, uh, let's say I was the one who was thinking about something, and I would say, I'm thinking about something. 00:10:35.759 --> 00:10:44.320 And then everybody else has 20 questions to ask me to determine what it is I'm thinking about. 00:10:44.799 --> 00:10:57.519 It's astounding what you can, how, if you have, if you ask the right questions, if you have the right categories of thought, uh, how you can understand something around you. 00:10:57.679 --> 00:11:07.440 So let's say I was sitting there in the back seat, and I was thinking of the knob on the butterfly window on my dad's side in the front seat. 00:11:07.600 --> 00:11:14.000 Now, unfortunately, some of you are far too young to remember that cars used to have butterfly windows. 00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:19.519 They kind of went like this, little triangular window, and they had a knob to open and close them. 00:11:19.600 --> 00:11:23.840 And so let's say I'm sitting in the back seat and I'm thinking about the knob on the butterfly window. 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:27.679 So my two obnoxious sisters, and I think my parents entered into it as well. 00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:29.759 I wouldn't dare call them obnoxious. 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:32.799 Um, and so you would start with questions. 00:11:33.039 --> 00:11:40.639 And I remember the kinds of questions we we asked, like, um, did we leave it at home? 00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:42.399 Now that's a pretty good question. 00:11:42.480 --> 00:11:44.879 That helps narrow things down. 00:11:45.759 --> 00:11:47.759 No, we didn't leave it at home. 00:11:47.919 --> 00:11:50.480 Okay, that means it's here with us. 00:11:51.200 --> 00:11:54.320 Um is it bigger than a bread box? 00:11:54.559 --> 00:11:57.759 Now that was something that we said as kids, bigger than a bread box. 00:11:57.919 --> 00:12:01.759 Does anybody here remember what a bread box is or how big it is? 00:12:02.159 --> 00:12:06.240 Uh when we went to Europe, we we spent 30 years with bread boxes. 00:12:06.320 --> 00:12:09.120 So, you know, bigger or smaller than a bread box. 00:12:09.360 --> 00:12:16.879 Uh a favorite question to try to characterize something is is it animal, mineral, or vegetable? 00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:18.720 And so we would go on. 00:12:18.879 --> 00:12:25.039 Now, what we had are categories of thinking to understand things around us. 00:12:25.279 --> 00:12:28.960 Now, if you have the right categories, it helps you understand. 00:12:29.039 --> 00:12:34.960 But let's say I wasn't thinking about the knob on the butterfly window on my dad's side. 00:12:35.200 --> 00:12:38.000 Let's say I was thinking about the sunset. 00:12:39.039 --> 00:12:42.559 Is it animal, mineral, or vegetable? 00:12:45.919 --> 00:12:47.279 That doesn't apply. 00:12:47.759 --> 00:12:51.360 That's not the way of understanding a sunset. 00:12:52.320 --> 00:12:58.639 You've got to have the right categories, otherwise you misinterpret, misunderstand, and stay confused. 00:12:59.360 --> 00:13:13.600 Long story to say, in a in a simple way, I believe what God is doing in the early chapters of Genesis is giving us the right categories to understand reality around us. 00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:18.879 And we don't have to play 20 questions with God. 00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:20.720 He reveals himself. 00:13:21.279 --> 00:13:25.200 We've spent a lot of time talking about in the beginning God. 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:35.200 And now we find today at the crescendo, the high point of creation, we get a defining category. 00:13:35.440 --> 00:13:39.519 The right question that what does it mean to be man, mankind? 00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:43.039 Is it animal, mineral, or vegetable? 00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:46.240 Well, we participate in all of those. 00:13:46.799 --> 00:13:50.320 But we are more than just a collection of amino acids. 00:13:51.039 --> 00:13:55.360 Um there is something unique about mankind. 00:13:55.759 --> 00:14:06.720 The defining characteristic of mankind is what we read about here, and it is that we are created in the image of God. 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:15.440 We are created, designed, and destined to reflect something about who God is. 00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:16.559 Not everything. 00:14:16.720 --> 00:14:20.320 We are not the exact representation of God. 00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:25.200 But there's something about us that reveals God. 00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:39.039 The heavens declare the glory of God, but beyond that, there's something about man who is placed above the rest of creation that in a distinctive way reveals something about God. 00:14:39.919 --> 00:14:48.240 And we are specifically given dominion over major aspects of the created realm. 00:14:48.320 --> 00:14:52.080 And that too is part of the image of God. 00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:55.440 So we want to look at that. 00:14:56.480 --> 00:15:06.159 So as we uh walk through these first few verses, we may miss something because we began in verse 26 instead of reading the whole flow. 00:15:06.480 --> 00:15:10.240 We may miss that there is a change. 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:24.879 I'm not a great musician, but I'm enough of a musician to know that sometimes in a piece of music there are devices, there are ways of emphasizing something. 00:15:25.120 --> 00:15:32.559 One of which is oftentimes a final verse or a final part of a piece of music will be raised a step. 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:37.120 And it it somehow builds to a crescendo. 00:15:37.519 --> 00:15:44.399 Uh this morning, as the worship team was was playing, there was a certain point where the instruments fell away. 00:15:44.639 --> 00:15:47.759 And that change that that drew us in. 00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:59.360 Well, what we find here is there is a shift in what the author is saying, a literary change. 00:16:00.320 --> 00:16:02.720 There's a couple of aspects to it. 00:16:02.879 --> 00:16:14.080 First of all, um he has been saying, let there be lights, let the light and the darkness be separated, let this happen, let that happen, let that happen. 00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:26.720 And now, and it would be very clear to someone who is speaking Hebrew and hearing this, that there is a change from let that happen to let us make. 00:16:27.440 --> 00:16:29.039 First time that kind of phrase. 00:16:29.120 --> 00:16:30.960 And it's a different grammatical form. 00:16:31.120 --> 00:16:38.159 And it would be like raising the key up a step or something like that. 00:16:38.559 --> 00:16:44.240 Um, a heightened emphasis, a crescendo for the pinnacle of creation. 00:16:44.480 --> 00:16:45.279 Let us. 00:16:45.759 --> 00:16:47.519 Many things we could say about that. 00:16:47.679 --> 00:16:55.600 It's another expression, which, with the rest of scripture, we understand, points to the very nature of God. 00:16:55.759 --> 00:16:56.720 God is not alone. 00:16:56.960 --> 00:17:03.440 God is never alone, because God is a community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 00:17:03.679 --> 00:17:09.359 Let us, not just let it happen, but let us make man in our image. 00:17:10.079 --> 00:17:16.640 Um there's the the thought that we've seen uh evening and morning the first day. 00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:24.720 Uh Jane raised the question when we were picking apart the sermon last week, I think, uh, at over the meal. 00:17:25.359 --> 00:17:26.880 Well, do that, I know. 00:17:27.039 --> 00:17:33.599 Um why is it, I mean, because I kept saying morning and evening the first day, where the text says evening and morning the first day. 00:17:33.839 --> 00:17:34.720 Kind of reverses it. 00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:35.359 Pretty simple. 00:17:35.440 --> 00:17:38.240 I'm a Westerner, we think of days beginning in the morning. 00:17:38.319 --> 00:17:41.200 In the Hebrew mind, the day began the night before. 00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:43.200 Sabbath begins the night before. 00:17:43.279 --> 00:17:47.519 So evening and morning is a complete day in that sense. 00:17:47.759 --> 00:17:56.880 But this was good, and this was good, and this was good, and this was good, and this is good, and this is very good. 00:17:58.240 --> 00:18:04.880 It's rising to a climax, a crescendo pinnacle. 00:18:05.119 --> 00:18:20.160 The earth and the seas are good, the light and the dark is good, but man in the image of God, given a mandate to steward and rule over creation, is very good. 00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:20.720 Okay? 00:18:21.119 --> 00:18:26.400 So we need to be aware of these kinds of things. 00:18:26.799 --> 00:18:41.359 And what happens is at this point in the story, the emphasis is now on man and the story of man, what happens to man, the fall of man, what God does to redeem and save fallen man. 00:18:41.599 --> 00:18:56.640 From this point, virtually to the end of the book of Revelation, the that aspect of truth that is focused on, in the first place, is God, because the story does not revolve around us. 00:18:56.799 --> 00:18:59.200 The universe does not revolve around God. 00:18:59.279 --> 00:19:00.559 It's theocentric. 00:19:00.799 --> 00:19:11.519 God is at the center, but it's important for us to know who we are, what happened to us, and why we are in the shape that we're in. 00:19:11.839 --> 00:19:23.839 So now man's relationship with his creator and God's revelation of himself in light of that comes to the center stage. 00:19:24.079 --> 00:19:33.440 And this, the image of God in man, becomes the defining characteristic of what we must know. 00:19:33.759 --> 00:19:39.680 And if we fail to understand this, we're we're at a loss. 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:42.720 I've used the picture of the topographical map. 00:19:42.960 --> 00:19:45.359 True north and a few fixed points. 00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:51.039 One of the fixed points, we have a compass, and that is always pointing us Godward. 00:19:51.519 --> 00:20:13.119 But one of the fixed points in the topography of reality is that we as human beings were created in the image of God and given an assignment and a mandate to rule and steward and shepherd God's, this aspect of God's creation. 00:20:13.359 --> 00:20:16.240 And that is very good. 00:20:17.599 --> 00:20:19.440 So we've already touched on it. 00:20:19.599 --> 00:20:22.000 Man is set above the rest of creation. 00:20:22.079 --> 00:20:23.359 This is the high point. 00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:27.200 Man is just not in nature and part of nature. 00:20:27.359 --> 00:20:28.079 That's true. 00:20:28.240 --> 00:20:39.279 We share a great deal with the animal world around us, and we are made of the same stuff, the amino acids and the carbon molecules and all of that. 00:20:40.079 --> 00:20:42.720 But we're not just in creation. 00:20:43.519 --> 00:20:52.640 Man as the image bearer of God stands above creation, and that is very good. 00:20:53.359 --> 00:21:00.000 Man is distinct from and placed over the animal world. 00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:03.680 So he says, Let us make man in our image after our likeness. 00:21:03.920 --> 00:21:10.400 Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the livestock. 00:21:11.039 --> 00:21:25.039 Not only are we in the image of God, but part of being in the image of God is being distinct from the rest of creation, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air. 00:21:25.200 --> 00:21:30.400 So God created man in his own image, and the image of God he created them, male and female, he created them. 00:21:30.559 --> 00:21:32.319 We'll come back to this in chapter two. 00:21:32.559 --> 00:21:42.880 And God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion. 00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:57.759 When he's talking about the image of God, we are set above the rest of creation, and we are to steward or care for the created world around us. 00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:18.640 Care for the environment, we must care for the natural resources, but that must never, never come at the cost of caring and valuing for valuing of mankind, because mankind is more than just that. 00:22:19.599 --> 00:22:31.920 Our care for the environment, and there is a whole correct theology, and frankly, in evangelical circles, we kind of take that for granted and we need to recognize this is a good earth. 00:22:32.160 --> 00:22:35.839 And our task is not to rape and ravage the good earth. 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:37.759 Our task is to steward it. 00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:46.480 There is a solid evangelical theology of environmentalism that escapes most of us as evangelicals, unfortunately. 00:22:46.799 --> 00:22:57.359 But our concern for the rest of creation and nature must never trump the dignity and value and importance of mankind. 00:22:57.759 --> 00:23:02.000 I may have mentioned this before, I get my stories mixed up. 00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:15.920 But the most vivid reminder of this was our experience when we were living in Germany and we were living in Candeln, and the main town was Lurach, and it was down the hill, down a winding road. 00:23:16.160 --> 00:23:19.440 And at a certain time of the year, that road was treacherous. 00:23:19.599 --> 00:23:28.960 Sometimes it was treacherous because of snow, sometimes it was treacherous because the frogs were migrating from one side of the road to the other. 00:23:29.039 --> 00:23:30.960 Who knew that frogs migrate? 00:23:31.200 --> 00:23:39.039 But during mating season, at least here, the breeding grounds were here and they were living here, so they would go across the road, especially at night. 00:23:39.200 --> 00:23:44.640 And as you went down there, and if you weren't careful, splat, splat, splat. 00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:46.559 In fact, it would get slippery. 00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:50.799 So the Germans love them. 00:23:52.319 --> 00:23:56.079 The Green Party dominated Germany at that time. 00:23:57.039 --> 00:24:09.279 And so what they did is they put up frog fences along the side, that portion of the road, uh to keep you from splatting and splatting and splatting the frogs. 00:24:09.440 --> 00:24:12.880 Now, I honestly don't have a problem with that. 00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:21.599 However, what I have a problem with, at the end of the road in Lurach was our regional hospital. 00:24:21.839 --> 00:24:28.319 And at the end of the road, they would without compunction sniff out the life of an unborn child. 00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:32.960 So we protect the frogs, but we abort fetuses. 00:24:33.759 --> 00:24:46.240 Now, I get at a certain level of thinking, if you just think horizontally, I get why that might even be justified if your view of reality is all messed up. 00:24:46.480 --> 00:24:56.640 But what I want to say is we are not just another animal, and we must not treat other people in that way. 00:24:56.799 --> 00:25:05.680 So there's all kinds of moral and ethical issues that grow out of this matter of man in the image of God. 00:25:05.839 --> 00:25:12.079 And I don't have the time, I do have the inclination, but I don't have the time to deal with that further. 00:25:12.160 --> 00:25:14.559 So man is set above the rest of creation. 00:25:14.799 --> 00:25:21.440 Let's try to understand how the Imago Dei, the image of God, could be understood. 00:25:21.599 --> 00:25:36.079 Now, people far more brilliant than I am, scholars more dedicated to the Word of God, no doubt, than I am, more godly than I am, have spent lifetimes exploring this, and we can stand on their shoulders. 00:25:36.319 --> 00:25:37.200 What does it mean? 00:25:37.359 --> 00:25:40.880 What is the scripture, what's it really saying, the Imago Day? 00:25:41.039 --> 00:25:41.680 Several things. 00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:51.759 First of all, we have here a capacity that God has created for the pinnacle of his creation to relate to him. 00:25:53.279 --> 00:25:54.960 Let them make them in our image. 00:25:55.119 --> 00:25:56.799 Let us make them in our image. 00:25:57.039 --> 00:26:08.640 And then God walked and talked with Adam in the garden in the cool of the day, had fellowship in a way that is quite different from his relationship to the hippopotamus. 00:26:08.880 --> 00:26:16.799 And that's not putting down the hippopotamus, that's elevating the uniqueness of God's relationship to mankind. 00:26:17.039 --> 00:26:35.119 In its core, mankind, unlike the rest of the created realm, unlike the rest of the animals, has the ability to know, relate, and love and serve God in a way that is different from the rest of the world. 00:26:35.279 --> 00:26:40.960 Now, if we don't look at revelation, then we equate mankind with just other animals. 00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:45.519 But there is, that's what this image and likeness points us to. 00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:51.039 The word image means a faithful representation. 00:26:51.119 --> 00:26:52.559 It's not a facsimile. 00:26:53.039 --> 00:27:01.599 It's not, it, or it is a facsimile, it's similar to, but it's not a precise, we are not a precise representation of God. 00:27:01.759 --> 00:27:12.240 But there is something about mankind that reveals some things about God in a way that is different from the rest of creation. 00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:17.119 We're not a photocopy, but we're not just something else. 00:27:17.200 --> 00:27:18.559 We're at the high point. 00:27:18.880 --> 00:27:24.640 And this capacity to relate personally to God is part of that. 00:27:26.319 --> 00:27:33.119 There is a similarity, a distinctive similarity to relate to Him and glorify Him. 00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:55.440 If we don't understand that the purpose for which your neighbor or the person sitting next to you at work or the person walking past you in the street, believer or unbeliever, part of the purpose and the reason for mankind's existence is to reflect and glorify God. 00:27:55.599 --> 00:28:03.759 And man is given great dignity and worth because we are image bearers, all of us, even after sin comes into the world. 00:28:03.839 --> 00:28:05.359 We'll look at that in just a second. 00:28:05.599 --> 00:28:20.400 At its core, the defining characteristic of mankind, made in the image and likeness of God, destined for dominion over and assigned with responsibility. 00:28:23.119 --> 00:28:24.559 Another way of looking at it. 00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:26.559 We are theomorphic. 00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:37.680 Now, I'm not trying to just give you fancy terms, but you're perhaps familiar with the word anthropomorphic, where you attribute human characteristics to your dog. 00:28:42.400 --> 00:28:46.559 There's something about some animals that do reflect something within us. 00:28:47.519 --> 00:28:57.200 But many philosophers say that what the Bible does is the Bible has us create a God in our own image. 00:28:58.160 --> 00:29:00.319 It's all anthropomorphic. 00:29:00.640 --> 00:29:02.640 That gets it all backwards. 00:29:02.960 --> 00:29:08.880 We are, God is not anthropomorphic like man. 00:29:09.599 --> 00:29:12.079 Man is in some ways like God. 00:29:12.319 --> 00:29:14.079 We are theomorphic. 00:29:14.240 --> 00:29:18.000 God is not like us, we're a little bit like God. 00:29:18.480 --> 00:29:23.039 In a way that's distinct from the rest of creation. 00:29:23.839 --> 00:29:30.480 We are sufficiently like him that we can know him and relate to him. 00:29:30.960 --> 00:29:34.400 We can love him and have a relationship. 00:29:35.440 --> 00:29:42.880 Now, if we're not careful, we attribute uh human qualities to our pets. 00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:46.880 Now, frankly, there is a difference between a guppy and a dog. 00:29:47.119 --> 00:29:50.640 A guppy just kind of does its thing in the bowl. 00:29:50.960 --> 00:29:53.519 And we're dog people, we love dogs. 00:29:53.839 --> 00:29:55.519 But they're just dogs. 00:29:56.079 --> 00:29:59.920 We have an incredible, there's a special relationship there. 00:30:01.039 --> 00:30:03.440 Um, and I don't want to put that down. 00:30:03.599 --> 00:30:11.279 It's just that's that's not kind of a parallel with how we relate to God. 00:30:11.519 --> 00:30:13.759 So we have to be careful, there's limits. 00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:21.279 We can anthropomorphize things around us where God theomorphizes I don't even know to say it, us. 00:30:21.599 --> 00:30:22.960 We're a little bit like him. 00:30:23.519 --> 00:30:27.440 And man's best friend is a little bit like us. 00:30:28.240 --> 00:30:32.559 Enough so our dogs wag their tail when even I walk in. 00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:36.079 That doesn't make them human. 00:30:36.640 --> 00:30:44.960 The fact that we praise and worship a God and are moved to adoration when we encounter God doesn't mean we're God. 00:30:45.119 --> 00:30:48.960 It means we're a little bit like him in significant ways. 00:30:49.759 --> 00:30:54.400 Uh the scriptures view this as an amazing privilege, a high calling. 00:30:54.480 --> 00:30:57.119 I won't take the time to turn to Psalm 8. 00:30:57.200 --> 00:30:59.839 But that's what that portion of Psalm 8 is all about. 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:07.039 Oh God, when I consider man, you've made him just a little lower than the heavenly beings. 00:31:07.200 --> 00:31:09.680 What is man that you take interest in him? 00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:11.119 We're blown away. 00:31:11.359 --> 00:31:16.640 Oh man, man, oh man, is what the uh the psalmist says. 00:31:16.960 --> 00:31:25.839 Man! Amazing, a privilege, even in our fallen states. 00:31:27.200 --> 00:31:29.119 That's even more amazing. 00:31:35.359 --> 00:31:40.240 This idea of dominion over the works of his hand. 00:31:41.519 --> 00:31:53.440 Dominion for us, if we're not careful, has a negative feel to it because in a solemn, sinful, broken world, if someone has authority over someone else, it's likely to be abused. 00:31:54.799 --> 00:32:01.200 The principle of authority and dominion and rulership is good, not bad. 00:32:01.920 --> 00:32:04.559 It's sin that twists that. 00:32:04.880 --> 00:32:10.160 So the dominion we exercise over creation, we abuse and rape creation. 00:32:10.960 --> 00:32:12.720 And that's wrong. 00:32:13.039 --> 00:32:18.640 Much less other people to be abusive to other people. 00:32:18.880 --> 00:32:23.759 So dominion in a fallen world has a dark side to it, no question about it. 00:32:23.920 --> 00:32:36.480 But do not ever, do not ever cast aside the idea of rulership in a dominion, because that goes to the core of what we're what we were created for. 00:32:36.960 --> 00:32:54.880 We'll come back to this in chapter two because we'll see that Adam and Eve had an assignment in the garden to tend and care for the garden, to investigate the nature of the natural realm, give names to the different animals and so forth. 00:32:55.200 --> 00:33:02.559 But to rule over them, it's sin, not dominion, that gives ruling a bad name. 00:33:04.079 --> 00:33:29.119 So nurturing, not exploring, uh, the idea is responsibly caring for, functioning as a steward or a vice regent, seeking the best of, caring for, intending the good earth, caring for and respecting and helping all men, not only those of the household of faith. 00:33:29.279 --> 00:33:41.200 The whole, the basis for legitimate God-honoring social justice and social action goes to the identity of man as created in the image of God. 00:33:41.440 --> 00:33:46.960 Some aspects of this, as evangelicals, we're comfortable with, and some we say, oh, that just sounds really liberal. 00:33:47.279 --> 00:33:55.920 We must not give away caring for the environment or showing justice and dignity to all men, to liberals. 00:33:56.559 --> 00:33:58.559 That's a partial gospel. 00:33:58.799 --> 00:34:00.799 We believe in the full gospel. 00:34:00.960 --> 00:34:02.799 I'm not talking about speaking in tongues. 00:34:02.960 --> 00:34:09.039 I'm talking about fully receiving that which God has given to us to know and to be. 00:34:09.840 --> 00:34:20.639 All right, the reality is that sin has defaced, but it has not erased the image of God in man. 00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:28.639 We don't know what the world would have been like had it not been polluted by sin. 00:34:30.880 --> 00:34:33.039 It's a wonderful thing to think about. 00:34:33.199 --> 00:34:35.599 We just don't have any revelation about it. 00:34:36.400 --> 00:34:39.760 What it would have been like if Adam hadn't sinned? 00:34:40.079 --> 00:34:42.880 If Eve hadn't given him the apple. 00:34:49.199 --> 00:34:53.280 But if that hadn't happened, what would this world be like? 00:34:54.320 --> 00:35:05.840 Well, we have some clear indications, and we saw it a couple of months back as we were looking at death and life and life after death and the new heaven and the new earth. 00:35:06.159 --> 00:35:19.519 But what we do know, even before all of that future thing comes, mankind still exists in the image of God. 00:35:19.679 --> 00:35:22.719 We don't have time to go into it in depth. 00:35:23.119 --> 00:35:30.559 Genesis chapter 5, after the fall, when the descendants of Adam and Eve were propagating after their kind. 00:35:30.960 --> 00:35:37.039 It specifically said, after their kind in the image of God, after the fall. 00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:48.480 Sin, excuse me, sin did not destroy, it affected and marred and defaced, but it did not destroy the defining characteristic of man. 00:35:49.760 --> 00:35:58.480 The image of God expressed among other things in properly ruling and stewarding and caring for God's creation. 00:36:00.719 --> 00:36:17.599 We also find, for example, in 1 Corinthians James chapter 3 is pretty clear, when we bite and destroy one another, James says, you're attacking other people who are in the image of God. 00:36:17.679 --> 00:36:19.760 And this is in our sinful world. 00:36:20.079 --> 00:36:26.639 All I want to say is the image of God is not just pre-fall, it goes all the way through. 00:36:30.960 --> 00:36:42.079 Jesus, Jesus is the only man who has fully reflected in his humanity fully God and fully man. 00:36:46.400 --> 00:36:48.320 Those kids did a phenomenal job. 00:36:48.480 --> 00:36:51.519 I hope they never forget the song that they sang. 00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:53.679 Fully God and fully man. 00:36:55.039 --> 00:37:04.559 But Jesus is the only man who was fully reflecting the image of God, in which the image of God was not defaced. 00:37:05.119 --> 00:37:21.760 The glory of the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ, according to 2 Corinthians 4, we are being transformed into the image of Christ, who is the perfect reflection in humanity of the image of God. 00:37:24.159 --> 00:37:29.519 We could go on for hours, but there is a super supper and a super bowl, so we won't. 00:37:30.480 --> 00:37:43.119 Let me try to just quickly there's there's three main things that I want to share that to me become very clear by way of application. 00:37:43.440 --> 00:37:54.320 First of all, this understanding of the defining characteristic of man being in the image of God is a critical part of our worldview. 00:37:54.559 --> 00:37:58.960 It's a critical part of how we understand things. 00:37:59.440 --> 00:38:07.280 If you just see animal, mineral, and vegetable, then you are limited and ultimately foolish and it doesn't work. 00:38:07.440 --> 00:38:11.599 There is more to us, and there's more to creation than that. 00:38:11.840 --> 00:38:13.760 We are so much more. 00:38:14.400 --> 00:38:17.760 And if we don't realize that, we come into all kinds of problems. 00:38:18.559 --> 00:38:27.679 One of the things in this connection, without this, we're going to misunderstand the facts of life. 00:38:27.920 --> 00:38:31.039 You want to teach, you're having problems teaching your kids the facts of life? 00:38:31.119 --> 00:38:34.400 This is the most important fact of life, my friends. 00:38:35.119 --> 00:38:37.519 That we're created in God's image. 00:38:38.639 --> 00:38:39.280 Amen. 00:38:40.559 --> 00:38:41.199 Amen. 00:38:43.280 --> 00:38:44.239 Love that. 00:38:45.760 --> 00:38:47.599 Let me just mention something here. 00:38:47.840 --> 00:38:53.599 A fully Christian worldview underscores the importance of Christian education. 00:38:53.840 --> 00:38:57.519 A fully, true, robust Christian education. 00:38:57.760 --> 00:38:59.920 Let me try to be careful how I say this. 00:39:00.079 --> 00:39:07.280 A Christian education is not defined by having a time in which you learn Bible verses and have a chapel. 00:39:07.440 --> 00:39:09.280 I'm all for that, don't get me wrong. 00:39:09.440 --> 00:39:11.519 That does not make a Christian education. 00:39:11.760 --> 00:39:22.719 What makes a Christian education is where young people and adults begin to understand every area of life in its relationship to God. 00:39:22.880 --> 00:39:43.679 So if you're a mathematician, you don't separate your mathematics from God because the complexity of math, which goes right past me, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the ability of man to think and understand that way is something that has to do with the character of who God is and who God has made man. 00:39:43.840 --> 00:40:05.840 If you've been studying early childhood development, for example, and you fail to bring that field of study into truth where in the beginning God and God created, and we are image-bearers of God, then you will study early child education with a flawed and unfortunately limited worldview. 00:40:06.079 --> 00:40:11.360 So, whatever field, if you're a plumber, then we plumb to the glory of God. 00:40:11.599 --> 00:40:16.719 We bring everything together to the focus on who God is. 00:40:16.960 --> 00:40:21.599 And we think of Christian education, I believe, far too shallowly. 00:40:21.920 --> 00:40:26.400 We are not trying to socialize kids to get them act like Christians. 00:40:26.800 --> 00:40:32.079 If that's what our Christian education is doing, we're not helping, we're harming. 00:40:32.400 --> 00:40:50.239 But whether it's at the first and second grade or at the university level, if we can orient and correlate all truth and bring it in line with the reality of who God is and of reality, that is Christian education. 00:40:50.400 --> 00:40:52.800 And boy am I a believer in that. 00:40:53.599 --> 00:40:56.320 In part because of what we're seeing here today. 00:40:56.480 --> 00:41:00.239 We are created and destined for community as an outgrowth of this. 00:41:00.880 --> 00:41:02.079 Here's where I get that. 00:41:02.400 --> 00:41:12.159 Let us, God says, plural, speaking about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let us make them in our image. 00:41:12.400 --> 00:41:16.960 Well, God is what has been called a divine community. 00:41:17.119 --> 00:41:18.000 God is not alone. 00:41:18.079 --> 00:41:20.239 Before He created anything, He was not alone. 00:41:20.400 --> 00:41:22.639 He was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 00:41:22.800 --> 00:41:25.760 That is goes to the very essence of who God is. 00:41:25.920 --> 00:41:29.039 It goes to the very essence of who we are. 00:41:29.599 --> 00:41:32.079 It is not good to be alone. 00:41:32.639 --> 00:41:34.960 That's not just talking about marriage. 00:41:35.039 --> 00:41:47.519 That's talking about the very nature of what it is to be human, to be individualistic, to be isolated and separated, to be a rugged individualist is not to be fully human. 00:41:47.679 --> 00:41:48.639 Let me get that straight. 00:41:48.719 --> 00:41:50.880 To be a rugged individualist. 00:41:51.199 --> 00:42:11.039 As good as that is, and you folks, more than me, are the heirs of the pioneers who made it through the North Dakota winters and survived the sod houses and were hardworking and pulled themselves up and made it by with grit and determination, and that's a good thing. 00:42:11.280 --> 00:42:24.239 But if that becomes isolationistic, if that becomes just rugged individualism, as though we don't need other people, then that is sub-Christian, my friends. 00:42:24.480 --> 00:42:26.400 It's not good to be alone. 00:42:26.639 --> 00:42:28.400 It's not good to be a loner. 00:42:28.480 --> 00:42:30.400 We were not made for that. 00:42:30.559 --> 00:42:36.320 We were made for community because God is community and we are created in his image. 00:42:36.639 --> 00:42:41.039 All kinds of implications, a zillion implications for the local church. 00:42:41.360 --> 00:42:42.880 What is the local church? 00:42:43.039 --> 00:42:47.840 It better not just be a group of individuals sitting in the same place studying the Bible. 00:42:48.079 --> 00:42:50.400 If that's what it is, forget it. 00:42:50.559 --> 00:42:52.159 Let's just not do that. 00:42:54.719 --> 00:43:02.559 The church is a community of faith who worships God together. 00:43:03.119 --> 00:43:06.079 Worship is not a solo experience. 00:43:06.559 --> 00:43:09.920 It's not just God is your co-pilot or even God is just your pilot. 00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:13.199 No, we are in this together, the body of Christ. 00:43:13.920 --> 00:43:27.360 If we are not connected to one another in deep, meaningful relationships or working at that, if we're just a bunch of individuals who happen to assign the same doctrinal statement, that does not make us a church. 00:43:27.679 --> 00:43:39.920 If we are individuals who are fundamentally separated from one another because I like this and I agree with that, and I like this over here, and we're this and this, we are not the church of Jesus Christ when we are divided like that. 00:43:40.159 --> 00:43:43.599 We are falling short, we're settling for far too little. 00:43:44.320 --> 00:43:59.440 The church is to be a conglomeration of imperfect people with limited perspectives who together find something that is greater than the sum of the parts, who are more human together than separately. 00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:06.559 More human together, more godly together than separately. 00:44:06.880 --> 00:44:11.599 We underplay and undervalue the nature of community. 00:44:12.079 --> 00:44:19.039