Weekly Sermons

Image Bearers

I love the story of a young boy and girl at the beach who had just found another starfish washed up on the beach, and had waded out into the water and placed it back in the water so it could live.

As the story goes, a cynical person said to the children, “look up and down the beach, there are hundreds of starfish washed up – do you really think you are making any difference.”

To which the girl replied, “We made a difference to that one!”

That’s how I feel when I think about Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, which we are observing today.

The word sanctity means holy, sacred, or even godly (from godlikeness). When we think of the sanctity of human life, we are speaking about the inherent value every human has because they are created in the image and likeness of God.

God has called us to promote the inherent value of human life from conception to coffin throughout what have been called the seven mountains of cultural influence: family, church, education, business, government, media, and the arts.

I believe it was C.S. Lewis, who reflecting about our creation in the image of God once said, “You and I have never met a mere mortal – there is no such thing!”

Now saying we believe that people are created in the image of God is a lot easier than fully understanding what that means.

It is entirely possible that you have affirmed you believe it without ever really thinking about it!

It reminds me of a great quip I head in December from Gary Reynolds –

“I don’t fully understand how electricity works, but I’m not going to sit in the dark until I figure it out!”

What I love about studying how we are created in God’s image is that every aspect of what we learn enriches our appreciation for God as our Creator, as our Redeemer, the salvation we can have in Jesus, and the high calling on our lives.

Read Genesis 4:25-5:8                  Imagebearers                       Let’s Pray!

Note that our text comes after the Creation of mankind described in Genesis 1-2, and after the fall on mankind into sin described in Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 5:1 repeats that Mankind, both male and female, has been created in the likeness of God and has been blessed by God.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”                      -Genesis 1:26-28

Genesis 5:3 states that after the fall, Adam and Eve had a son named Seth, who was born bearing the image and likeness of his sinful earthly dad.   

According to Genesis 5:26, after Seth became a daddy himself he called on the name of the Lord. But Genesis 5:8 records that eventually, Seth died.

These verses are so helpful for us in understanding the human dilemma.

We have been created in the image of God, but every generation is born with a sin nature, bearing the image of fallen man.

You often hear a debate that goes something like this. A person or a song or a movie will proclaim that “people are basically good.” And a Christian will answer back, “no, humans are sinners who need a Savior.”

The truth is that somehow humans still bear the image of God, but that image has been marred by the fact that every human is born with a sin nature and early in life begins making sinful choices, and are separated from God until saved.    

No man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude (likeness) of God.         -James 3:8-9

So now we have 3 words we need to understand – image, likeness, and similitude.

Most Bible believing scholars believe the words are used interchangeably.

The Hebrew word for image is tselem (H 6754), which occurs 17 times in the Old Testament. It could also be translated ‘representative figure.’ The Greek word for image is eikon (G 1504), which occurs 23 times in the New Testament.

You can see the word “Icon” in there, a type of idol.

In the Ten Commandments, Israel was forbidden to make images representing both the worship of false gods, and worshipping God falsely.

Why? Because…

We humans are supposed to be the “representative figures” of what God is like. We aren’t supposed to make an image, because we ARE the images God made! 

That brings us to the word likeness!

The Hebrew word for likeness is demuwth (H 1823), which occurs 22 times in the Old Testament. It could also be translated ‘model.’ The Greek word for likeness is homoioma (G 3667), a sister word of similitude (G 3669). It could be translated “made like.”

Look at how eikon and homoioma are used of lost people in Romans 1:22-23.

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image (eikon) made like (homoioma) corruptible man – and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.           -Romans 1:22-23

According to Romans 1:18, the problem was that they suppressed the truth in their unrighteousness, denying what creation without and their conscience within declares to them about God and His truth.

The fact that lost people suppress the truth (Romans 1:18) and make false images (Romans 1:23) tells me that even in the most lost of men, the image of God is so implanted inside them that their disobedience to God is known at some level inside them and has to be suppressed to act in unrighteousness. 

That’s why a thief looks both ways before they steal something – they know inside its wrong.

That’s why a person feels guilty when they cheat on their spouse – they know inside they have done their spouse wrong and tries to hide it.

That’s why when a person supports the killing of a baby in the womb, they try to justify their actions, but can’t even convince themselves.

If the truth is suppressed long enough, it often shows up in health troubles – anxiety, sleeplessness, stress, ulcers. Those are the indirect links to health, not counting the direct health problems related to sinful choices made by those who reject God’s truth.

Every human you meet was created in God’s image and likeness! Because of the fall, we lost the ability to be sinless like God. The other ways we are like God have been marred by the fall, and that’s where Christ comes in.

2 Corinthians 4:4 tells us that Christ is the image of God. (so does Colossians 1:15 & Hebrews 1:3). When we study the life of Christ, we see a perfect living out of the traits of God we are to emulate as God’s imagebearers.

Some of those traits: Holiness, love, truthfulness, wisdom, goodness, patience, righteousness, justice, righteous anger, grace, mercy, forgiveness, faithfulness.

Those who have been born again are seeing the image of God restored in their life as they follow Jesus Christ and emulate His character traits.

As we have born the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the Heavenly Man!                 -1 Corinthians 15:49

That brings us back to the Sanctity of Human Life.

Our goal as believers must be to consistently speak and act in a way that promotes and defends the value of every human life throughout their life, whether they ever turn to Jesus or not.

Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.                -Proverbs 31:8-9

God has called us to promote the inherent value of human life from conception to coffin throughout what have been called the seven mountains of cultural influence: family, church, education, business, government, media, and the arts.

As part of being consistently pro-life we support financially the work of Transitions here in Danville, and Pregnancy Support Services in Chapel Hill.

They are doing the work of helping people facing crisis pregnancies choose life rather than aborting their precious babies.

We grieve over the 42 million babies aborted throughout the world in 2020, the number one cause of death worldwide. But we are thankful for those who did not abort but chose life instead thanks to the efforts of places like Transitions.

By the way, help those in crisis pregnancies understand the beauty of adoption. Help them understand they are not giving their child up, they are giving their child the right start in life they are not able to give.

As part of being consistently pro-life Christians also get involved in foster care and adoption.

As part of being consistently pro-life we also come alongside the most vulnerable populations. We do that through support for and involvement in feeding programs, tutoring programs, good news clubs, Magnolia House and others. Love for the most vulnerable also includes appreciating what people with down’s syndrome and other special people bring into our lives. Daniel Ritchie last year!

As part of being consistently pro-life we fight against every kind of racism. If you still hold racist views, you are living in the image of Charles Darwin, not Jesus!

Darwin taught that we evolved from animals, and that there are 5 kinds of people with darker people being closer to apes and white skinned being superior. In the past horrible racist laws were made to separate the races, fueled by evolution.

If you love Jesus and your Bible, you reject all of that evolutionary teaching and you fight to bring the races together. The only color that matters is the Red blood of Jesus shed to save all mankind!

As part of being consistently pro-life we respect and care for the elderly, and we fight against their exploitation. We also fight against euthanasia.

So that just leaves one question: As part of being consistently pro-life, should we engage politically?    ABSOLUTELY!

Government is one of the 7 mountains of cultural influence, and we should be involved in each to promote Creation and Redemption.

Let’s return to the starfish analogy – the children were struggling to save individual starfish out of hundreds that had washed up on the shore. But what if bad policies out in the ocean meant not hundreds, but hundreds of thousands of starfish were washing up on the shore!

Bad policy and decisions in all 7 mountains of influence obscure the image of God in people and mean more broken people who we will need to minister to.

Parents leaving their families; teaching kids they come from monkeys does it; church leaders with misplaced priorities does it; bad movies does it; bad music does it; businesses and media restricting free speech does it; and bad government policy regarding abortion abortion, free speech, and religious liberty does it.

We know that here in Virginia! Elections have consequences, and last year many godless laws were voted in and signed in Richmond.

Last year Virginia and D.C. were the only places in the United States where access to abortion was expanded, and medical protections for women were diminished.

Meanwhile we can rejoice that 45 abortion facilities in the United States closed or halted abortions in 2020, and there are 255 less abortion facilities now than in 2009. But growing access to abortion pills through the mail should concern us.

Those who voted for pro-life policies nationally in 2016 were rewarded by the Trump administration. We stopped financing abortions overseas, we shined the light on Planned Parenthood as an abortion cartel and reduced funding to it, and we saw 300 federal judges and 3 supreme court justices seated.

As the New Testament commands us, we will honor and pray for the Biden administration. But we are saddened that before midnight on inauguration day, President Biden will probably sign executive orders returning to many godless policies on abortion. For that we grieve. 

Being consistently pro-life includes activity in all the areas we have talked about today – praying, acting, ministering, speaking the truth in love, sharing the gospel so all who turn to Jesus can have eternal life.

Let’s Pray!