Pastor Brent looks at Genesis 1 and how the way God created humanity instilled within us a worth and value. This message shows how being uniquely made in the image of God should change the way we see ourselves and the way we view and treat others.
This message references a message Pastor Brent preached in 2015 on Creation and The Big Story of God.
You Were Made for the Image of God
Genesis 1:26-27
Introduction
Last week we began a new series where we want to take a look at some of the most important questions we all struggle with, Why are we here? What is our purpose? What value is there to my life? And value is a good word because I think at some level, all of us want our lives to be valuable. We want to matter. For this world to be better because we were a part of it. But there is a lot of confusion around this idea.
Think about it for just a moment. What is it that makes a life valuable? And beyond just the value of our own lives, is there value to other’s lives as well? If so, what determines their value?
There are many criteria that we can use to evaluate. Is it someone’s position of power that dictates their value like our President Donald Trump? Or is it their political affiliation like Hillary Clinton? I can feel the tension in just mentioning these two name!
These names illustrate a great point about how we value not just our own life but the lives of others. Immediately from the mention of these two name, most if not all of you have determined a value of these two lives. And I dare say that from some of you, at least one of these pictures has generated a feeling of “I wouldn’t spit on that person if they were on fire.”
And this highlights an incredibly important point. We use different criteria to determine someone’s worth or value. Their political affiliation. Their country of birth. We must admit, the American ego is pretty big and that leads us to stick our noses up a bit when we think about “those people.”
We can use the color of someone’s skin to determine their value. We can look at their job, net worth, possessions, how they dress, how they speak. Can I get an “A-me-un” from the Southerners out there?
Education. family size. The list goes on and on. We can find any number of ways to determine someone ’s value or worth. We are much too sophisticated to ever say it out loud, but it is something that is a struggle for many if not most people not just here this morning but around the world.
Several months ago, Pastor Stephen of Alive Church shared with me how there is a pastor in Des Moines telling people from his Liberian tribe to not worship at Alive Church because Stephen comes from another tribe and he believes Stephen’s tribe is beneath his.
This is such a problem that the United Nations has ratified and released two documents to declare basic human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948 and the 470 page International Bill of Human Rights that came into force in 1976. The fact that documents like this and numerous other laws have to be passed highlight for us that a problem exists.
We want value for ourselves. But we are willing to devalue others to get it. And sometimes in the name of rights we are willing to dehumanize others in order to elevate ourselves.
When it comes to ascribing worth to people, do we look to the United Nations to make that happen? Is it necessary to have resolutions and laws passed to make that happen? Or is there something else, somewhere else we can look to find value in our existence.
Who Says?
To understand our true value and the worth of others, we must begin with a crucial question. Who gets to decide? It may seem like a silly question, but it only takes a quick look back at history to see that left up to ourselves, we can make some pretty foolish and even dangerous choices.
Segregation, slavery, and the holocaust are just a few painful reminders of how a self-determining of human value can lead to very destructive places. And it only takes a generation to se
