Made in the Image OF God

“Created in the Image OF God”
 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Jan 24, 2016
Text: Genesis 1:27 // Series: Four Small Words

A few years ago, Meg and I were down in Seattle for a weekend getaway – this is when the dollar was not in the toilet.  We found a great rate on what I think is one of my favorite hotels, the Edgewater, down on pier 67.  Beautiful views.  We paid for the city side room got upgraded, so we had this amazing view across the sound to Banbridge Island.  A beautiful view of the city…  I opened the window…  look around, two rooms down, I see a person leaning out the window, arm cocked back, with all of his might, he throws something out of his hotel room into the ocean.  Slams his window shut.  It was something about this big floating, floating our way. As it floated closer I could see that it was something every hotel room in North America has in the nightstand drawer.  You guessed it.  A Gideon’s Bible! 

I’m not sure what past experiences my fellow guest had had with the Bible that caused them to viscerally respond in that way – but it can’t be good if you are throwing the Bible out of your hotel room into Puget Sound!  My other thought was a bit more cheeky: I thought about calling housekeeping and casually mentioning that there was no longer a Bible in that room and seeing if they might be so kind as to deliver a fresh one, but I thought against it. 

What’s your personal experience with the Bible?  I first encountered the Bible as an elementary aged kid in Sunday School.  It was the only book I knew that had fancy gold gilded pages and really, really thin special paper.  People had cases for them and you could put pens in them or snacks.  You could get white leather Bibles with your name embossed in gold letters.  People would speak eloquently about various translations or reading through the Bible in a year. I had very little idea of what they were talking about.     

Because let’s be honest.  The Bible is not an easy book to read. It’s made up to two very uniquely different parts called Testaments, it contains 66 different books, written by at least 40 different authors over the period of 1600 years.  It has multiple styles: narratives, history, poetry, prophecy, personal letters, biographical accounts, letters to churches.  It was originally penned in 3 different languages and has been translated into more languages than any other book in human history.  The Bible is so significant that people here at Jericho have invested their lives in helping others discover and read it.  I think of people like Steve and Ali Nicole, or some of our supported partners like Junghoon & Pearl Lim working on translation projects in Malaysia or Jon & Anita McCarthy who are heading with Wycliffe Bible Translators to Papua New Guinea this summer.

Even beyond the composition, sometimes the content of the Bible can be complex and hard to understand.  There are some parts that even after rigorous analysis and thousands of years of thinking and writing, some verses are still being argued over their precise meaning.  One author remarks [photo] “It’s a book so complex that people have dedicated their life to studying it and yet so simple that even a child can understand it.”  Friends, this is no ordinary book! 

And yet if I were to ask you or you were to ask me how well do you know the Bible, what would you say? 

For a very long time in Christian circles, my observation is that people have equated ‘spiritual maturity’ with how much you know about the contents of the Bible.  But the challenge is that we have all likely met someone who knows a LOT about the Bible but their character remains under transformed.  They are still judgemental.  Or still just as angry.  And still just as filled with anxiety or fear.

But what if God’s desire for you when it comes to the Bible is not just that you know more, but that you understand it more.  Maybe the reason that the Bible is so intimidating to a lot of people is that they look at it through the wrong lens. 

Last month, I picked up a copy of a book by pastor and author Jarrett Stevens who attempted to take his congregation through the Bible.  The Book was called “Found Small Words” and I was struck with the simplicity of it and so I reached out and asked if there was a willingness to share the material with us here at Jericho.  His people were wonderfully generous and I got a pre-release copy of the book and read it right away.  I found it to be a simple yet profound way to understand the Bible, in all of its complexities, in Four Small Words. 

You might say, “Brad – that’s impossible!” There’s no way to reduce the approximately 774,000 words in the Bible down to four!”  Well, it might be reductionistic so you’ll have to forgive me for that.  But in our culture, we are in an era where we are growing more and more acclimatized to the idea of saying more with less.  The rise of Twitter, for example, or texting or Instagram – don’t even get me started on Emoji’s – if I ever find the person who introduced my daughter to them, I may just take their cell phone and throw it off pier 67 in Seattle! 

But what if you could tell or at least sum up an entire story in Four words?

What if you had to tell your own story in just four small words?

What if you could understand, communicate and articulate the Great Big Story of God in just Found small words?  And if you get it, I might suggest that it would be less intimidating to share that story when a co-worker or neighbour asks you “what the Bible about anyways?” 

Over the next four weeks, we’re going to look at the four main movements or parts of the Bible.  And there’s going to be a single word that encapsulates or synthesizes that theme or segment.  4 small words to help us get the big idea or big picture of the Bible.  Here they are:

1. OF – Creation – The Story of our true Identity (Gen 1-2)
2. BETWEEN – The Old Testament – The story of separation (Gen 3-Malacia 4)
3. WITH – The Gospels – The story of a Present God (Matthew 1-Acts 1)
4. IN – The rest of the New Testament – The Story of a People inhabited by God (Acts 2-Reve 22)

Again, this isn’t about knowing more.  It’s about understanding more.  Connecting dots.  Making sense of some things you perhaps already know.  Ready to dive in?

Open Bibles to the beginning (a very good place to start) J.  Genesis 1….  The very first word in our Story comes from the very first book of the Bible.  It’s found in Genesis 1 the story of creation.  God is creating the heavens and earth but then in Gen 1:26 God says “Let us (meaning the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) make human being in our image, to be like us”  Or to be OF us.    

It’s a word of identity or being…  The adventures OF Tom Sawyer tells us that these stories spring from his life.  The United States OF America – is a statement of belonging, of composition.  OF can also be a statement of biology – I am the son OF Greg and Colleen Sumner.  I have parts of me that come from them – their DNA - but there are also parts of me that belong to them.  OF is a deeply relational word.  Which is why it is so powerful that God uses it in Genesis to describe at the very start of the story of humankind, where we come from.     

Because OF is not just a biological or relational concept – it’s also a theological truth.  Genesis 1-2 answers one of the most hauntingly resonant questions that human beings ever wrestled with.  “Genesis 1-2 tells us we don’t just come from or belong to something, but rather, we come from and belong to Someone.  Your identity flows from and belongs to another story, bigger than your parents.  It has a source. It has a beginning.  Which means It has meaning. 

The Bible says in Genesis 1:27 - “So God created human beings in His own image. In the image OF God He created them; male and female He created them.”

Powerful!  You did not just get here, you were placed here!  God’s fingerrpints are all over the story of You and I have been created in the image OF God.

This is where the sotyr begins.  It’s where your story begins. 

There are two profoundly basic questions that are answered for us in the first two chapters of God’s story:

• Who is God?

What we see is that 

• God exists in the context OF loving relationship (Trinity)

Trinity – perfect love (Mike did a great job on the Wired blog describing this).  Trinity is far more relational that rational.  Grenbtz reminds “created from community, for community” 

• God creates out OF overflowing love (Delight)

When God created the world, when God created you – Psalm says knit together in your mother’s womb – He did that as an act of love.  Good looked at all He made and said “this is good”.  God’s choice to create not only the world, to create humankind, to create you and me was an act of love.  It’s an overflow of who He is.  I John 4 repeats this refrain over and over… God IS love. 

Some people would argue “what about birth defects or challenging genetic conditions?” or other things that exist in the created world that you are telling me God created and oversees?  Does that mean God delights in those things?  No.  We’re going to see next week that we live in a world of disrupted intentions where not all is as God originally intended it to be.  Part of this is the implication

• The image OF God has been placed in you (Choice)

Both our original forbearers were and you and I are endowed with free will.  We can choose whether we want to embrace the love that God offers.  We can also choose to reject it. We can choose to live in ways that brings harm and disruption to the relationship between God and us, between us and other human being, between us and creation… 

Next week we’ll exploe the implciations of our choice to reject God and how that puts distance BETWEEN us.  But here’ the challenge: there are theological systems that start there and place the strongest emphasis there.  With how horrible you and I are, that we are worms and sin soaked and depraved - and that’s all true.  BUT that’s not where the story starts!  The Story starts with the beautiful truth that you and I were created in the image OF God.  And that yes, this image is marred and scared and wrecked and damanaged by sin and the effects of living in a fallen and browkn world.  This is not to diminish any of that. BUT this is to say let’s start where the Biblical story starts!  With a story of God’s image being indelibly and irrevocably stamped into humanity. A story of blessing.  

Where the story goes and the twists nad hurts and hang up along the way does not diminish the significance of where our story starts.  Our story starts with being named, known, being loved…  Which means I’m already starting to answer the second most profund yet most basic question that the human heart needs to know.  Not only who is God but also…

(Q2) Who am I?

Genesis 1-2 gives a beautiful and daring picture of your identity and mine.  

One of the things we are going to see as we move into this series is that these four small words tell not only tell the story of the Bible, but they also connect deeply with your story and mine.  The answer to that question could also be framed using the same four small words…     

• Created for relationship (with God & others)

OF – each of us is created with an identify that comes from God and is bigger than who we are right now. 

BETWEEN – Each of us has experienced separation from God when sin comes between us for one season or another.

WITH – Each of us has had moments when we felt ‘close’ to God, when we knew He was with us, when we desired that feeling.

IN – Each of us has been crated to live in the power and presence of God in our everyday lives. 

The second thing we see in Genesis 1-2 in terms of our core identity is that

• Created to experience equality (Hebrew: ‘ezer’)

In our relationships.  God created both men and women in His image.  There an intriesting word that comes up in this that sometimes is misunderstood.  Look at Genesis 2:18 [read] – Not good for man to be alone. I will make a HELPER.  The Hebrew word there is EZER.  We don’t have time this morning to trace that word all through the Old Testamenet but sometimes we think of helper as inferior – someone will do the real work then they’ll have a helper.  But ‘ezer’ is a word used of God the Holy Spirit – He is our helper.  And if it used to describe God Himself, this in no way can implies inferiority or a second class of citizen.  Embedded in our identity as co-image bearers of God is that male and female were created to uniquely and dsistinctly represent aspects of the heart of God.

This also play out in terms of race and colour.  Think about the way in which that people have mis-used the Bible throughout history to inapprorpartely marginzlie or create distinct classes of people.  Blacks and whites.  Empires or races that saw themselves as more pure or more deserving of God’s favour.  When you get back to the start of the story, there’s a mutuality and respect and equality that is embedded right into who we are.  This is one reason why Jericho Ridge is a place where men and women serve together in leadership.  Where we respect and cultivate the gifts and callings and identity of both our sons and our daughters.  Because we believe that in our maleness and our femaleness, we are both created as image bearers of God and each as a role and play.            

The roles we play or the tasks that God gave our first ancestors to accomplish remind us that we are

• Created to have a purpose in life (Partnership)

Ephesians 2:8-10 reminds us that we are created in Christ to do good works which God prepared in advance for you and me to do.  We are saved to serve.  As image bearers of God, we are partners with God in His work in the world.  Which is an incredible privilege but also an incredible responsibility.  We’ll talk more about that in week 4 when we talk about the Holy Spirit.

You may be thinking about now… OK.  So you’re pretty amped up, Brad, about me being created in the image OF God.  What are some of the practical

Implications for Your Story:

Challenge: we are bombarded thousands of times each day with message about who we are or who we are supposed to be.  It is so easy in our culture to get caught up in a false sense of identity.  In what we do (performance identity) instead of who we are.  In how we look (identity rooted in appearances – how much I weigh, how much I look like the magazines) in stead of who you are.  An identity rooted in your financial realities (how much you make or owe)…  We live in an era of identity confusion and exchange like never before.  Here’s the challenge 

• If you loose who you are OF, you loose who you are (live with a clear sense of identity)

In order to reclaim your identity, you have to to go back to the start of the story.  The truth that you were created in the image OF God.  Friend, if you are listening today and you don’t have a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning, you will find that in relationship with God.  You can start that today.  Made in the image OF God but you have not started to walk out that relationship with Him.  Pray – invite God to the very centre of your life. “God, I want to have my identity defined by YOU, but what You have done for me through Christ Jesus!”.  We would love to pray with you and help you get started on that journey today.  

Maybe you’ve been on that journey for some time, but today you would benefit form a reminder of your Identity.  Because when you understand the beginning of the story, you see again that   

• Who you are IN Christ defines and shapes every other relationships

Who you are IN God defines who you are as a friend. A spouse. An employee. A parent. A single person.  Student.  That identity is so primary that it defines and colours every other identity that you take on through the course of oyur life. 

But the challenge I find is that I forget this.  And then it becomes easy to believe and abserb the ideitity stories around me.  But when you recapture the source of your soul, the truth of where your story and your identity begin, this allows you to reject the lies that others tell you.  You can live from a of deep, rich identity. You can know that your identity doesn’t come from what you have done but what God has doen for you.  You are accepted, you are secure, you are significant.        

This morning is the time to get back to that basic identity story.  Stop defining yourself by title, role.  But simply affirm: I am a child OF God.  I have been created in the image OF God.  That’s where I stand my ground!  This is what it means to have an identity that is rooted IN Christ (but I’m getting ahead of the story!)  Today is a day to Reclaim your identity.  The ushers are coming and the worship team is coming.  The users are going to pass out a bookmark that I want you to carry with you this week.  Put it in your Bible or on your mirror or computer moiitor.  It reminds you of Who you are In Christ.  You core identity. 

The worship team is coming to lead us in two songs – they both speak of our identity.  You may want to come and reclaim an area of your idneity this AM – the prayer team will be abaible at the sides. Bring your bookmark and say “God helping me, I want to grow in my understnaidng of this”  Because until you undersdatnd and begin to live out of who you are, the rest of the story doesn’t make any sense.  But you were created in the image OF God – who loves you and that makes all the difference in the world.  Let’s pray together.