OPEN: I read the true story about a 6-year-old who called his mother from his friend Charlie’s house. Apparently, he and his friend had been playing in the living room and tossing around a football… when they broke a lamp.
His mother was understandably distraught, and he attempted to comfort her with these words: "But, Mom, you don’t have to worry about buying another one. Charlie’s mother said it was irreplaceable."
APPLY: Irreplaceable… Well, we all know what that meant. It was highly valuable piece of furniture. Perhaps it was because it was a family heirloom, or perhaps because it was an antique worth thousands of dollars. But whatever the reason for its value… it was irreplaceable, priceless.
But to the mind of that little boy the term “irreplaceable” meant that it didn’t have to be replaced. It had no value beyond its being just a lamp. As long as it functioned, it had value… otherwise, no.
ILLUS: Before I went to Bible College, I spent a couple of years going to Purdue University. My brother had said it would be a valuable experience and dad was willing to pay – so I went. While I was there, I received a very special education.
Initially, I thought Psychology would be interesting. I liked my first class and found it interesting. The teacher was a very compassionate woman who made the course interesting. But about half way thru the course I was shocked by the way in which psychology apparently viewed mankind. The textbook likened men and women to machines. The author seemed to believe that if you pushed the right buttons and pulled the right switches, you could get people to do just about anything you wanted. The purpose of psychology (according to this textbook) was to find those buttons and switches so that mankind could be programmed to be better people.
That troubled me, so I switched to Sociology (because I thought that maybe they’d have a higher view of man). The class had to have had about 300 or more students and the professor was a powerful man who could really hold your attention. But, while I was in that class I discovered that the sociological viewpoint of man was that we were like animals. One of the scientists that they held up to demonstrate this thinking was a scientist known as Pavlov.
In his famous experiment Pavlov showed that when he fed a dog and rang a bell every time the food was served. Eventually, the dog began to drool every time the bell was rung… even if there was no food available. It was what is called a “conditioned response.”
Sociology, according to this teacher, could benefit mankind, if people could be manipulated like Pavlov had manipulated that dog.
Deep inside of me, something rebelled against what I was hearing. The idea that men and women could be reduced to little more than machines and animals. There seemed to be something wrong with that. But at the time I had no idea exactly why.
It was only when I got to Bible College and got deeper into the Bible that it gradually became clearer what the problem was. I had stumbled upon one of the great contrasts between the way the World thinks about mankind, and the way God thinks about us.
The world says that man is one step above the ape.
In the viewpoint of the world, we are an occurrence, something that just happened. We’re not created in God’s image. We are an accident. We’ve evolved.
We are the offspring of randomly assembled molecules. And because we are seen as the offspring of randomly assembled molecules that draws into the question the idea that we really have any PURPOSE in this life.
It calls into question the idea of whether we have ANY value outside of what we can do, and how much we can contribute to the world around us. Any value that we may have beyond that is purely sentimental.
We’re like the lamp broken by the boy – we only have TRUE value - as long as we function.
But God said – that’s not true:
God says we aren’t just one step above the ape… God says that we are one step below the angels.
In the beginning, when God created the world, He said, "Let us make man in our image after our likeness…”
It didn’t occur to me until I was studying for this sermon… but I recently realized that God didn’t say that about ANYTHING ELSE that He created.
HE didn’t say that about the Sun and the moon
He didn’t say that about the great beasts of the field or the birds of the air.
Then later, Scripture tells us that the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7
God didn’t do that with anything else that He’d created.
When God wanted something created … He simply spoke and it WAS
If He wanted an elephant… there it was
If He wanted the stars in the sky… he merely had to say the word and they’d appear.
BUT when God created man… He got down on His knees. He got His hands dirty. And He breathed into a piece of muddy clay and it became a living, breathing creation… MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD, IN HIS LIKENESS.
Why did God do this? Why would God go through all this elaborate ritual. Why would He do something so involved, when all He had to do was speak and the man would be formed. He’d already done that with all the rest of creation. But, only with man did God get down on his hands and knees to bring us life. So why would He do it that way?
Because He wanted to drive home to people like you and me that we are created in His image!
We are valuable because He made us valuable. We are like nothing else that He’s created. And our value goes beyond what we can do, or what we can contribute. You and I don’t need to function in order to be valuable to God. You and I are valuable simply because He made us so.
Now… just because we don’t have to DO something TO HAVE VALUE doesn’t mean that we don’t have something to do!
When God created Adam and Eve the first thing He did was give them a responsibility:
Look with me at Genesis 1:28 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."
God DID NOT make Adam & Eve simply for have them stand around and have a good time. God gave them a job to do. When God created them – He created them to do great things.
The greater the creation... the greater the potential.
ILLUS: I’ve got two kids: Jonathan and Naomi.
When they were born, do you think I said to myself: “Gee, I hope they grow up to learn how to live off mom and dad all their lives?”
OR “I really hope they learn how to get really good at video games and programming the VCR… because THAT’S ALL I really want them to do when they grow up???”
Noooo!!! Of course not
When they were born I just knew they’d grow up to be brain surgeons. Well, maybe not brain surgeons… But I knew that God has a purpose for their lives. It may be that they’ll become missionaries or powerful workers within the church.
I don’t know what God’s plan is for their lives.
But I do know ONE THING…
I want them to grow up to be whatever God wants them to be. And when I pray with them I emphasize that. And I constantly look for ways to encourage them and challenge to do better.
Why? Because, they’re my kids. If you will – they’re in my image, my likeness. They’re mine and I love them so much that I want God’s purpose to be fulfilled in their lives.
If you can understand the dreams a father and mother has for their child, then you have just a small inkling of the dreams God has for you and I. Because you and I are made in His image. In His likeness.’
God has a purpose for your life.
He has something that He wants you to do.
In fact, if you’re a Christian, Ephesians 2:10 says that you “…are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
You have something to do… a purpose… a valuable task that lays before you.
Now, I can just picture that some of you might be thinking –
“Yeah.
Sure.
Right.”
“Jeff doesn’t know me very well… He doesn’t know how weak I am! Jeff doesn’t realize that I don’t know how to do anything for God!!!”
Well, if you’re thinking that – you’re probably right (pause…) I wouldn’t know your weaknesses and shortcomings… but God does.
ILLUS: (from a sermon by Steven Dow on sermoncentral.com August 2002).
In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory space probe Pioneer 10. According to Leon Jaroff in Time, the satellite’s primary purpose/mission was to reach Jupiter, photograph the planet and its moons, and beam data to earth about Jupiter’s magnetic field, radiation belts, and atmosphere.
Scientists regarded this as a bold plan, for at that time no earth satellite had ever gone beyond Mars, and they feared the asteroid belt would destroy the satellite before it could reach its target.
But Pioneer 10 accomplished its mission and much, much more.
• In November of 1973, Jupiter’s immense gravity hurled Pioneer 10 at a higher rate of speed toward the edge of the solar system.
• At one billion miles from the sun, Pioneer 10 passed Saturn.
• At about two billion miles, it hurtled past Uranus;
• at nearly three billion miles it reached Neptune;
• and then it attained Pluto at almost four billion miles.
By 1997, twenty-five years after its launch, Pioneer 10 was more than six billion miles from the sun. And despite the immense distance, Pioneer 10 continued to beam back radio signals to scientists on Earth. It had continued to accomplish the purpose for which it had been designed long after anyone though it should have been able to.
Time magazine continued: “Perhaps most remarkable, those signals emanate from an 8-watt transmitter, which radiates about as much power as a bedroom night light, and takes more than nine hours to reach Earth.”
That little 8 watt transmitter wasn’t a very powerful piece of equipment
In fact, you might say that its power was INSIGNIFICANT
However, it was designed to be part of a piece of equipment worth millions upon millions of $$
It accomplished phenomenal things – in spite of the fact that it little power. Because it had been designed by it’s creator for a purpose. And it succeeded because it fulfilled that purpose.
The others sermons in this series are:
1. Irreplaceable - Genesis 1:24-31
2. Shaped to be a Servant - Ephesians 2:3-10
3. Making God Smile - Psalm 51:15-19
4. Formed to be Friends of God - John 15:9-16
5. Adopted for a Purpose - Ephesians 1:3-14
6. A Purpose Filled Love - 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
7. Purpose Driven Worship - Romans 12:1-8
8. Purpose Driven Strength - 2 Corinthians 12:1-10
