In His Image

Bring an apple - cut it open

How many seeds in an apple - easy to count - how many apples in a seed?

God only knows!

That’s what I love about babies - no one but God knows their potential.

So we had better work hard at showing them God.

More than 40 yr.. ago a Philadelphia congregation watched as three 9 yr. old boys were baptized and joined the church. As their membership dwindled, they sold the building and disbanded. One of those three boys was Tony. Years later, Tony decided to look up the church report for the year of his baptism. There is the name Dick White, he is now a missionary, and Burt Newman, now a professor of theology in an African seminary. Tony read the church report for that year. "It has not been a good year for the church. We lost 27 members 3 joined but they were only children. Tony’s last name was Campolo.

1st Creation Story

GE 1:26-28 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." :27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

1:26 Let US make people IN OUR IMAGE to be like us

Be masters over all life - God shared His leadership with us.

Made in God’s image means

1. That we are incredibly complex

Fine Print of a Legal Document has nothing on us. A single human chromosome contains Twenty billion bits of information , the equivalent of about 3 billion letters, or about 2 million pages, which would fill about 4,000 textbooks. If all the DNA molecules in one cell were unwrapped and stretched out end-to-end, the total length would be about six feet. Almost every cell in your body contains six feet of DNA, wrapped up into a very compact space.

2. That we are able to please Him

Creation declared good 1:27 Patterned after Himself (male and female)

Woman meets Man, thinks he is divine, she marries him.

3. That we are created to resemble - to look like Him

What does God look like? Girl drawing God - "They will now"

For centuries people were mistaken in what God looked like. Afraid of Him rather than in awe of Him. So God sent Jesus who was

Ro 5:14 - Yet, death ruled from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin in the same way Adam did when he disobeyed. Adam is an image of the one who would come. Ro 8:28-29 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God--those whom he has called according to his plan. This is true because he already knew his people and had already appointed them to have the same form as the image of his Son. Therefore, his Son is the firstborn among many children. 1Co 13:12 - Now we see a blurred image in a mirror. Then we will see very clearly. Now my knowledge is incomplete. Then I will have complete knowledge as God has complete knowledge of me. 2Co 3:18 - As all of us reflect the Lord’s glory with faces that are not covered with veils, we are being changed into his image with ever-increasing glory. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. Col 1:15 - He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

Image = Mirror, we are made in the mirror image of God and God is looking to see Himself in us. What distorts God’s image in us? How

Anyone can marvel looking at a newborn - its a bit more of a challenge 16 years later.

Why? Images get distorted

To get back to where we belong - we need to look more closely at God - not just ourselves

Spotting counterfeits - hold the real thing - Worship does that

1:28 Multiply and fill the earth - Subdue it - not destroy it. First Command

Reproduce and multiply was the original command, so sex not the sin

Shame later came not at the nakedness of flesh but of shame of disobedience & broken relationship

God created man and woman and pronounced them good. Naked was good, but if I take my clothes off there might be a lot fewer people in this church