In Whose Image Are You

In Whose Image Are You

Genesis 1:26-28

Prayer

Introduction

The assertion [that human brings were made in the image of God] confirms the genuineness of each man’s freedom. Experience tells us that we are free, in the sense that we make real choices between alternatives and could have chosen differently, and theology agrees. Self-determining freedom of choice is what sets God and his rational creatures apart from, say, birds and bees, as moral beings.

The men have been studying Peter and the other apostles on Wed. night and we have discovered that it takes many different kinds of individuals to work in God’s kingdom. We have studied leaders and we have studied workers and what we seem to have discovered is that life is a series of challenges. That it does it does not matter how difficult or how easy those challengers are what matters is how we meet those challenges. We can either meet those challenges in our own power or in the power of Jesus Christ. We have seen the disciples at their lowest point living in their own feeble strength beaten down by the challenges of the world. When Jesus was arrested we saw that all scattered lick little chicks from the hawk. They met adversity in their own power and strength and failed. Then we see them at Pentecost and after meeting every challenge in the power and with the authority of Jesus not depending on their own abilities but instead depending on Jesus’ abilities to see them through.

How hard it is for us to depend on a God that we must have faith in but can’t see, feel, or touch? At least that is what the world says. But I submit to you that as I look out over this assembly here tonight I see God in each and every face. We are created in His image. We are the image of God, but do we live like the image of God.

I. Why did God Create Man in His image?

a. To complete creation

b. To worship God

c. To serve God

d. What happened-Satan tried to destroy God’s plan by leading man to sin.

i. Uses our free will to trick us

ii. We choose to sin or not to sin. Satan can’t make a child of God sin because he no longer has control over us.

II. What does it mean to truly be the image of God?

a. We worship willingly

b. We serve Him willingly

c. We give up what we want for what God wants

d. We use our free will to choose salvation instead of damnation for eternity.

e. God blesses those who serve Him willingly

f. When people look at us the will see the image of God they will say that there goes so and so a man or woman of God. People will recognize

IV. “An Image Better Than Adam’s!” Isaiah 59:1-8 Key verse(s): 1-2:“Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear.”

Oh if we could but live one day as Adam and Eve. Have you ever wished this? If you could but experience for even the briefest moment the joy and complete satisfaction that must have been manifest in the lives of our first parents before they fell into sin. They walked innocent, naked and in complete communion with God their Father. Disharmony, sorrow, fretfulness, and anger were unknown to them. Doubtless they cried; but their tears could only have been as those which flow from a feeling of complete contentment and happiness. Their state was one of total cooperation, unswerving commitment and consuming love both for each other and for God. Created in holiness, they dwelled within its tent, secured and warmed by its amazing completeness and immeasurable capacity to grant happiness and promise. Adam and Eve were the lucky ones. They were created in pure holiness, a state which we have never experienced. We can only speculate what it must have been like. Can you imagine a day in your life when, in the presence of a person, even someone that you love with all your heart and soul, you do not harbor a single wrong thought or secure even the faintest glimmer of jealousy or resentment? Those little irritating thoughts that cross our minds constantly, the ones that are there for but an instant and then gone, would never happen. In a sinless world people would never know bitterness or envy. They would dwell apart from comparisons and they would have no need for justice. All these things would be made meaningless in the absence of sin.