I'll begin by reading that question.
New City Catechism, question 50, that's there in your bulletin.
It says, what does Christ's resurrection mean for us?
And the answer is that Christ triumphed over sin and death by being physically resurrected so that all who trust in him are raised to new life in this world and to everlasting life in the world to come.
Just as we will one day be resurrected, so this world will one day be restored.
But those who do not trust in Christ will be raised to everlasting death.
Essentially, that's just a summary of Revelation 19 through 22.
I'm going to start a short, well, Lord willing, we'll see where it goes, short topical series on the image of God.
The first thing you can pray for is that I can find my notes somewhere in this Bible.
Oh, there they are.
Before I do that, I'm going to explain why I don't normally preach topical series.
I mean, if you've been here very long and pretty much everybody here has long enough to know that normally we're preaching, like I'm working through a particular section of scripture or a whole book of the Bible.
And the reason for that is, is because we want to hear from God.
Like the whole point of gathering to worship is to, to gather together, to go to God, to hear what he has to say to us.
And, and if you.
I don't mean to cast aspersions on people who do things differently but when it's up to the preacher every week to decide like what are we going to look at in the sense of whatever his whims are or I came up with this really creative sermon series idea and if you do that consistently there's just going to be holes in what we hear as a church because my knowledge is limited my interests are limited so even if it's not you get
There are people who are crafting series specifically just to tickle people's ears and draw them in so they can fill seats.
But even if it's not, even if there's no bad intentions, just if it's up to me to have the creativity to decide how, what should we address, there's going to be big holes in our knowledge.
And the Apostle Paul, when he was speaking to the Ephesian elders in the book of Acts, said he had declared to them the whole counsel of God.
And I think the most consistent and
Ready, reliable way to do that is to simply pick a text of scripture and as we encounter things in that text, teach them.
We're going to come across things that way that I wouldn't have thought to or that I would be uncomfortable with and would shy away from.
But if we're moving through the text consecutively, God is going to confront us with unexpected things that comfort us and unexpected things that challenge us over and over again.
And I think it's the
The Healthiest Way, the easiest way to grow deep in our knowledge of the Lord.
And as he blesses and does give growth in terms of the number of people coming, that it will be healthy growth, not just something that's a flash in the pan.
All that to say, that's not what we're doing right now.
There are things that come up in the life of the
The Church or The Life of the Community or Our Nation that sometimes trigger in my mind, like, we need a series on that.
So last year, I felt like it was really important to do a series on the topic of what does a healthy church look like?
And so we did eight or nine weeks on that.
And then this summer, I was just personally struggling with hope.
And so we spent four or five weeks, whatever it was, looking biblically at the subject of hope.
This particular series, as we were working through the book of Genesis, at the end of chapter one back in October, we had a sermon on verses 26 through 31 of chapter one, where God creates man in his own image, male and female, he created them.
And I had like one paragraph towards the end, just trying to connect that to some of the current issues of our day, transgenderism, homosexuality, things like that.
As I reflected after that sermon, I had a really strong impression that we probably need to go deeper just on that subject.
There are so many things that are going on in our world and we have a gut reaction to them maybe of that's good or that's bad or that's okay or that's not okay.
But do we know what scripture says, how scripture speaks to these things?
And I want us as a congregation to have confidence that no matter what situation we're facing, no matter what's going on in the world, God's word either directly speaks to it or gives us a sufficient foundation and the tools to engage with those questions in a way that we can come to a God honoring conclusion and chart a path forward.
As I was starting to put that outline together and think about what I was going to talk about this week, then Friday happened.
If you're not aware, there was a young man in our community Friday evening, freshman in high school, who took his own life.
I spent several hours at the school after that and obviously spent a lot of yesterday talking to people.
It made me think where we need to start when we think about the implications of this doctrine, the doctrine of the image of God, humanity being made as a reflection of who God and what he's like, is not to jump straight to the controversial, how does this affect these thorny issues in our day?
We're going to get there.
But the first place to start
is the most basic implications of God's image.
And it's these two things.
Number one, every life, because it's made in God's image, every life has immeasurable value.
And number two, your life does not belong to you.
Every life has immeasurable value and your life does not belong to you.
So Genesis chapter one, verse 27,
So God created man in his own image.
In the image of God, he created him.
Male and female, he created them.
The first thing to notice about that is that this is an objective statement.
This is not something that the man and the woman achieve for themselves.
This is not something that they become over time.
They do not become the image of God.
In the Image of God, He Created Them.
This is something that is declared by God.
It's authoritative.
It is true no matter what.
Every human life is made in God's image.
It's one of the main dangers, I think, of our social media age is that people live a large portion of their lives online looking for transient
Approval.
Transient validation.
A passing sense of, did what I post get likes?
Did I get affirming comments?
Especially, this is a big temptation for younger ladies.
They'll post pictures of themselves looking for validation from the outside.
Oh, you're so beautiful.
Oh, that's a great picture.
And if you're living your life looking for that kind of approval,
that passes away, you're always chasing your own tail.
And we can do this in other areas of our life.
It's not just online.
We can do that in our, in our work life.
We can do that in our relationships with other people, rather than thinking, what is the right thing to do?
We think, how can I do this in a way that they're going to like me better in a way that they're going to approve of me and always be living for the approval of others.
But, but if we understand this bedrock truth.
that our value and our worth doesn't come from other people.
We're going to have a much more stable life.
Now as a dad, like how we interact with our children has a big impact on them, right?
And so I want to, I probably don't do a good enough job of this, but I try to with my boys say to them, just quote the words of God, the father, you are my beloved son and whom I'm well pleased.
And I tell my girls, you're, you're my little girl.
I love you.
I treasure you.
But when I'm doing that, I'm not giving them value, right?
They are valuable and they do matter whether I say anything or not.
That value is already there because God created them with value.
As a father, my job is to recognize that and call that out so that they understand it, so that they know it.
But it's already there.
We see that this value is intrinsic, that this is an implication of God's image.
This is where my notes start to get really bad, but we're, trust the Lord to walk us through this.
We see it initially in Genesis chapter four.
It's interesting.
I was thinking about Genesis chapter four.
I mean, we just preached a sermon on it a couple of weeks ago.
Nowhere in that text does it explicitly tell us
that Cain was wrong to murder his brother.
There's no verse in Genesis 4 that says, and Cain sinned by killing Abel.
Now you read the passage and it's pretty clear that he's not doing what's right.
Sin is crouching at his door.
God warns him.
Sin's trying to master him.
And then we see that sin does master him when he gives into his passions and his emotions and kills his brother rather than obeying the voice of God.
So the narrative is
is
in verse 6, or we'll start in verse 5.
God, essentially he's instituting the death penalty here.
The death penalty for capital crimes.
Verse 5, for your life blood I will require a reckoning.
From every beast I will require it, and from man.
From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
Whoever
Excuse me, sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.
For God made man in his own image.
So God is explaining to Noah there that every time someone is killed, the person who killed them, the person who's responsible for their lifeblood being shed, their blood shall be shed by the blood of man.
And this gets explained later on in Exodus and then even in the New Testament where Paul says in Romans 13,
that the state carries the sword.
And they carry the sword, we can think of that in a military context, but also in a civil order context where there are penalties for certain crimes.
And the standard that we see in the Old Testament explicitly is that punishment is meant to fit the crime.
And it's always geared towards restitution.
But in the case of murder, there is no restitution.
Because what you have done is take a life and you can't replace that life.
Because that life is made in the image of God.
And so the cost, the requirement, is the payment with your own life.
You can't actually make it right, but that's the only punishment that's fitting for that particular crime.
Why is that life so valuable?
Because it's made in the image of God.
And what we can draw from that
is that if that life is made in God's image, then to commit murder, as Cain did in chapter four, is an act of blasphemy.
It's not just something you're doing against that person, which is bad enough in its own right.
But in attacking a human being, you're attacking an image bearer of God.
James talks about this with our words in James chapter three, I believe it is.
James speaking here about the danger of the tongue.
James chapter 3 and verse 5.
So the tongue also is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire, and the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.
The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life and set on fire by hell.
Every beast, every bird, every
Reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue.
It is a restless evil full of deadly poison.
With it, we bless our Lord and Father.
And with it, we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.
From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.
My brother, these things ought not to be so.
Does a spring pour forth from the same opening, both fresh and salt water?
Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs?
Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
And the blessing there in verse 10, the same mouth, come blessing and cursing.
He's saying as you curse people made in the likeness of God, you are cursing at God.
And so from the same mouth, your tongue is forked like a snake.
You're blessing God over here and you're cursing him over here.
And James says, my brothers, these things should not be so.
We see in Genesis 4 that nature itself understands the gravity of this.
God speaks to Cain in chapter 4 and he says that the blood of his brother Abel is crying out from the ground.
That the ground itself
It recognizes the penalty, the weight of sin.
In Romans 8, Paul says that all of creation is groaning under the curse of our sin.
And the sin of violence against God's image is a big part of that.
So when we think about, boy, where in the Bible does it tell us?
This is one of these things we assume.
I think as image bearers of God, we just intrinsically know it's wrong to kill someone.
But God explicitly says this in Exodus 20, when God gives the Ten Commandments to Moses, verse 13 says, you shall not, the ESV says murder, you shall not murder.
And that word murder is a little too narrow.
Now the old King James says, thou shalt not kill.
And that's too broad because there are places where this side of the fall, God requires killing.
We just read Genesis 9.
If someone commits murder,
Then God has ordained for the state to put that person to death.
There are instances where you have to defend yourself from someone attacking you and you are allowed to use lethal force in those situations in scripture.
And there are instances of warfare where God tells his people to go out and slay their enemies.
So there is a place for violence and death this side of the fall.
But never on your own, outside of that maybe extreme self-defense case, never on your own do you have the right to become judge, jury, and executioner.
You don't have that right.
You in doing so are committing violence against God.
And not only is this the case with premeditated murder, but that, that word that the Hebrew word for murder in Exodus 20 verse 13 includes causing death through things like negligence.
or unthoughtfulness, not, not giving care to the life of others.
And so as you walk through the old Testament case law, which is basically just Moses, helping the people to understand how does the, the, the 10 commandments, how does the Decalogue apply to actual life?
One, one of the applications of this principle is you have to have a parapet around the top of your house.
Well, in that culture, like if you went out on the top of your house,
Like people hung out up there.
It was cooler in the afternoon.
You catch the breeze.
Better than being stuffy inside, right, when you don't have AC.
And if you were up there, basically for us, it'd be like if you're out on a high deck and there's no railing up there and somebody falls off of your roof, you're legally liable if you didn't have some way to keep them safe.
And that's an application of this same principle.
You cannot by carelessness just say, whoops, I didn't mean it.
No, life is too precious for you to not mean it.
Life is too precious for you to not be careful.
Life is too meaningful for, as James says in chapter 3, for you to use careless words towards others that could lead them to a dark place.
So none of us, on our own, has the right to take another human life, to be careless about their life.
This begins
Psalm 139 says, in the womb, I mean, so when we think about abortion, this is a very common text to look at.
Psalm 139, beginning in verse 13, you formed my inward parts.
You knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you for him fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works.
My soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you.
When I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed substance.
In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Before we're born, God has knit us together in our mother's womb.
He has counted out our days before we ever existed.
It's true for each and every human life.
It's one of those areas, you know, people often pit
The Bible and Science Against One Another and yet here is an area where it has become all the more clear as technology has advanced and we're able to see the baby developing in the mother's womb just from what a small age this is obviously a human and we also have DNA and technology you know like this is your DNA is the same all the way through from the moment of conception this is a human being made in the image and likeness of God we have no right to do harm to they've committed no crime
They are worthy of respect and worthy of being taken care of.
The principle of not having the right to take a life, not having the right to carelessly harm someone extends not just to others, but also to ourselves.
It's the second truth we're going to look at is that your life does not belong to you.
It's one of the great lies of our society is that my
My Body, My Choice.
My life is I'm the one who determines.
I'm the one who decides what's good for me, what's right for me.
I get to pursue what makes me happy, what makes me satisfied.
Me, me, me, me.
I, I, I, I.
And it's all a lie, lie, lie, lie.
First of all, God is the creator.
The Apostle Paul says in the book of Acts chapter 17, he's standing there
On Mars Hill in the midst of the pagan philosophers.
He quotes one of their philosophers back to them.
And he says, in him, that is in God, we live and move and have our being.
There is no life apart from God.
And if God is the creator, then God has rights over that which he has created.
Jim just built his porch.
Who owns Jim's porch?
Jim does.
Jim built it with his own hands.
God created your life out of nothing.
He owns you.
He rules you.
Romans chapter 14 verses 6 and 7.
Paul speaking specifically here to believers, but this is a call for all of humanity.
Romans 14 verses 7 through 9 says, For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.
For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.
So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.
For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and of the living.
Every human being created in the image of God is called to live as if before the face of God.
What should be driving us is specifically there in chapter 14 of Romans, Paul's talking about not casting judgment upon one another.
And he's saying,
Don't live for the approval of others and don't expect others to live for the approval of you.
Live as if to gain God's approval.
Now we know we're sinners, we fall short of God's standard and that's why Christ has come.
He did die, he bore both our sin and the punishment for our sin on the cross and he was raised again.
But we
Entrusting in his resurrection life and receiving the gift of his Holy Spirit are given the ability to live for his approval to live in keeping with what he says to do He's the sustainer of all things the book of Colossians chapter 1 speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ Paul writes
verse 15 of chapter 1 in Colossians.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn or the arche, the governing principle of all creation.
For by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rules, rulers or authorities.
So everything visible that you see, including your life, everything invisible, including all the Satan, all Satan and the angels and the demons, they were all created by God.
All Things Were Created Through Him and For Him.
Your life doesn't exist for you.
Your life exists for Christ.
That's true of every single thing in the world and it's true of every single person.
You exist not for you.
You exist for Christ.
For His sake.
He determined to create you.
He determines to sustain
Your Life, and Though You Are a Sinner, He Thought You Worth Purchasing with His Own Blood.
1 Corinthians chapter 6, Paul in the middle of exhortations concerning living a sexually pure life in the midst of, he was speaking to a culture that was just as pagan in this way as ours is.
And he says in verse 19 and 20, You are not your own.
You were bought with a price.
And what was that price?
That price was Christ's own blood.
And so he says, so glorify God with your body.
It's a striking feature of the New Testament that the writers who have all kinds of earthly claims to fame, claims to glory.
Paul has been given visions where he's taken up into the third heaven and seeing things he can't even put on paper.
The Apostle Peter was with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration and beheld Christ conversing with Elijah and Moses.
A similar vision to what Moses was given in the book of Exodus and the people of Israel couldn't even look at Moses' face.
Well now Peter and James and John are taken up to that spot.
Like they get to see Jesus interacting with these two as he is transfigured before their eyes.
James is a half-brother of the Lord.
Jude is a half-brother of the Lord, and when they write their letters, how do they identify themselves?
With all these accolades?
Not usually.
They usually write, Paul, a servant, or a bondservant, a doulos.
Literally, the best translation of that word is, a slave of Jesus Christ.
Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ.
James, a slave of Jesus Christ.
They've been set free from sin.
They've been set free from the law.
They've been set free from the law of death.
Set free to be owned by Christ.
To live a life devoted to under the lordship of Jesus.
They don't see that as having their life taken away.
They realize, they recognize that that is where true life is found.
is in obeying and worshiping and living a life that honors the one who created them and knows them and loves them more than anyone else.
True life is found in slavery to Jesus.
I want to direct your attention to Luke chapter 20 and talk for a minute about taxes, which might sound out of left field.
but it's not.
Luke chapter 20.
At this point in Jesus' ministry he's very unpopular.
He has been saying things that make people mad for three years now and it's kind of come to a head.
The scribes and the chief priests have just been told by Jesus that they are wicked tenants in his vineyard and they're going to be thrown out and people who are more worthy are going to get their
place that he is the stone that the builders have rejected.
They're the builders, they rejected him, but built up around him God is going to create a building, a temple.
The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
Peter quotes that in 1 Peter 2 to explain that Jesus is the cornerstone upon which his church is built.
They're really upset with Jesus.
Luke chapter 20 verse 19, the scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him that very hour.
For they perceived that he told this parable against them, but they feared the people.
Jesus is very unpopular with the leaders of the nation, very popular with the people at this point.
Side note about what I just said earlier.
If Jesus were living for their approval though, that would have been pretty fickle, wouldn't it?
Because they're going to then call out for his crucifixion.
Jesus did not live his earthly life for the approval of the crowd.
Sometimes he had it and sometimes they say crucify him, crucify him.
But he lived his life in obedience to his father.
Verse 20, the chief priests and the scribes watched him and sent spies who pretended to be sincere.
Which back to Genesis chapter 3, remember I exhorted you when you have questions, like you have nagging questions, did God really say
Or when people are coming to you saying, does God really say question the questions?
Questions aren't always sincere.
These guys are asking Jesus questions that are not sincere.
That they might catch him in something he said so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor.
So they asked him, verse 21, teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God.
Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar or not?
But he perceived their craftiness and said to them, show me a denarius.
And they're asking him this because if Jesus says, yes, pay tribute to Caesar, he's going to get less popular with the crowds.
And they know he's ministering to the crowds.
He probably doesn't want to be unpopular with them.
He doesn't want to say Caesar's a higher authority than the Jerusalem authorities, than the word of God.
So let's say, should, should we pay taxes to Caesar?
Because then if he says no,
Oh, we just report him to pilot and we've got our problem taken care of.
Jesus says, show me a denarius.
He says, whose likeness and inscription does it have?
And they said, Caesar's.
And he said to them, then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.
Caesar has authority.
If he has authority to get his face printed on the thing and he wants it back, give it back to him.
Okay.
This is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
And then he says, render to God the things that are God's.
And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him in what he said.
But marveling at his answer, they became silent.
The chief priests and the scribes, they give up trying to trick Jesus.
The Sadducees give it one more go in the following text.
But pretty much at this point, they're done asking Jesus questions like this doesn't work.
And even in the heading of this Bible, it says paying taxes to Caesar, like this is about taxes.
But this isn't about taxes.
Jesus's line of argument here, you listen to this.
He says, if Caesar has his inscription on it, if he's got his face printed on the thing, it's his, give it to him.
But then the kicker is what he says with the rest of that sentence.
Give to God the things that are God's.
Well, if we know the denarius belongs to Caesar because his face is on it, what has God's image on it?
You do.
So give to God yourself, all of you, everything in you, all of the time.
Caesar can have his money.
I may not like what he does with his money, but in the end it's going away anyway.
You last forever and God wants you right now.
This means two things.
Number one, if you are a believer,
You need to remember that your life matters to Christ so much that he paid with his own blood.
And Paul says in Romans 12, Therefore, in light of the gospel that he spent 11 chapters explaining, offer your bodies to Christ as a living sacrifice.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Let God's word wash over you, over you, over you, over you all through your life.
And slowly but surely, by the power of his Holy Spirit, bring your life as much as you can't do it on your own, but he will.
If this is your desire, he will conform you to the image of his son.
Do not settle for just showing up to church.
Do not settle for just, yeah, I know Jesus.
I know I'm okay when I die.
Strive, Hebrews 11 says, for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
Well, what is holiness?
Holiness is being like the Holy God.
Be conformed to him.
And if you don't know him, then repent of your sins and trust him because your life matters just as much as everyone who's already trusted him.
Jesus died for you as well.
So repent of your sins and cling to what Christ has done for you.
Our world is so full of despair.
despairing of the value of life, despairing of the worth of trying to live to the next day.
We have hope.
We know the truth of who we are as creatures made in the image of God and who we are as those for whom Christ has died.
So as we move into Christmas season and as we live in a community that's hurting and needs hope,
Pray to God that you would speak hope into the lives of those around you, the true hope, the only real hope, the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Let's pray.
Father God, we need your help.
Why am I so cowardly in conversations to not speak the one thing that people really need to hear?
Lord make us salt.
You have made us salt.
Jesus says in Matthew 5, you are the salt of the earth.
You are the light of the world.
A city on a hill cannot be hidden.
Make us shine brightly.
We ask these things in your precious name.
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