Sermon Transcript
So last week we talked about the image of God and how the image of God is an objective and reasonable foundation. It’s an answer for us to find our identity in. And so this week I want to talk about more about the image of God, but how we seek identity apart from God.
So when I talk about identity, we said last week, I’ve got a very kind of specific thing in mind, right? A definition for that. It’s really the way we answer two important questions about ourselves. The first is, who am I? And the second is, why am I here?
Or what is my purpose? Right? And so whenever we talk about identity, that’s a little bit of an oversimplification, like we said last week, but it’s helpful for us to have a definition of what exactly we’re talking about talking about when we say identity. And so to just think about these questions and how important they are, they form so much of our lives, right? And God gave us an identity.
His image, or what we said last week was the hebrew word Zalem, right? His image that we are created in, or his likeness, his demuth is the hebrew word there. God’s created us as his image bearers. We said last week, it’s not just a noun. It’s not just something that is a part of who we are.
It’s not just a characteristic. It’s actually something that we do. We bear the image of God, and with that, we are his representatives here in the world. We are his stewards here in the world. And it’s an innate part of being human.
It’s a part of us that cannot be separated from who we are. You can’t take away the image of God from humanity. You can’t remove it. Sin itself even doesn’t corrupt it to the point where it’s gone. You can’t lose it because of your sin, and you can’t earn it back because God just gives it to you.
He makes it as a part of who you are when he created you. And so being created in God’s image means that we are his children, we’re created to be his representatives. That’s as if God is here on earth, physically through us. And the only qualification that’s needed to have this image of God within us is to be human is to be created by God as humanity. And so God created us in his image in such a way that it’s just innately ingrained in who we are.
And there’s no other identity, then that will truly satisfy us, accept this identity that God has already given us. But we have a problem. All of humanity, throughout all of history, has sought identity apart from God. And that’s a problem. That’s a problem because it leads us to sin.
We sin when we are apart from God, and we are apart from God when we sin. And so when that happens, when our identity gets wrapped up in things other than God and things other than what it was meant to be wrapped up in, in the image of God, it turns our whole lives upside down. It creates a mess, and we need forgiveness. We need to get back to what God has, has created us. As in his image, the world gets turned upside down when the source of our identity is taken away or no longer satisfies us.
We become broken by the very things that we chase after. The very things that we center ourselves on apart from God are the very things that break us. And so today, and next week, we’re going to unpack how we get back to this image of God. How do we get back to the image of God, this identity that he has given us? And what happens when we do?
In order to do that, I’m going to have to ask you today to open yourselves up to some truth, to some things that the Bible says are true. Right. Some things that God has to say for you today. And I have to ask you to accept some things about yourself that aren’t easy to accept. And I have to accept these things about myself that are not easy to accept.
So in order to do this, I want to give us an exercise that might help with this. And then I have a really important question for us to think through before we dive in any further to this. The exercise that I want you to do. Bob Goff, in his book Love does, talks about how he would have his clients and his witnesses, whenever they were going up to the witness stand or whenever Bob himself would go into, like, an important meeting or, like, a stressful situation, he would do this thing where he would sit down, and I can’t do it because I’m standing, but, like, he would put his palms on his lap, right? And his palms up and his fingers open.
Okay, so can we do that right now? If you’re comfortable, just put your palms in your lap. Hands in your lap. Palms up and fingers open. Right?
If you’re comfortable. If you’re not comfortable doing that, no one’s gonna make you. So this isn’t youth group. It’s not mandatory. Fun, right?
Okay. But if we sit like this, what is that? A posture of openness and receiving something, right. You’re willing to receive something, right. And so as we sit here, this is literally what, the opposite of a defensive posture, right?
Defensive posture is like you’re curled up and you’re protecting yourself. You’re crossing your arms and you’re protecting your core of your body or the important parts of your body, right? But this is a receptive posture, right. We’re willing to receive something. So I’m asking you to receive something.
Especially, I’m just telling you, younger people in the room, this is something that, as a part of the culture that we live in, but really, all of us, right, because of the Internet and the time that we live in, we live in a culture where what I’m going to tell you today is you’re probably not going to want to receive it. Most people don’t want to hear what the Bible has to say that we’re going to read today. But if we sit with this receptive posture, maybe, maybe we can hear it, we can receive it, and it’ll change our lives. The second thing I have for you is a question. And the question is, do you trust God’s word to speak the truth to you through me right now?
Okay. Some of you are just like, yeah, I know, Paul, sure, why not? But the thing is, thank you, by the way. I’ll pay you later. No, just kidding.
I got my ringers in the room.
The thing is, we live in a time where the answer for a lot of people is probably no for a lot of reasons. Let’s unpack that. That is a loaded question, isn’t it? An extremely loaded question. So let’s just unpack it.
When I say, do you trust? I don’t even have to necessarily ask, do you trust me? Do you trust anyone? And that’s a real question for us today, isn’t it? People just don’t trust people other than themselves.
We don’t tend to trust voices outside of ourselves. And I love the phrase, trust is gained in drops and it’s lost in buckets, right? Rondel says that all the time. Rondel, Ramsay. And I love that phrase because it’s so true.
It’s so easy to lose trust, and it’s so hard, almost impossible to gain it today. Trust is a hard thing in our culture. And a lot of people have trouble trusting anyone’s voice except their own. But in order to receive what we have to receive today, we gotta get outside of ourselves. We have to learn to trust the voices of other people.
We got to learn to trust God. Do you trust God? Right. I think it’s nt wright. Maybe in one of his books he talks about how when we sin, typically we’re questioning either God’s goodness or his greatness.
Right? And so when we think about, do I trust God? Do I trust God to have the answers for my life? Do I trust God to lead me and to guide me, that he has what is best for me in mind? And so you gotta answer that question today.
Do you trust God’s word? There’s a lot of people questioning God’s word today, isn’t there a lot of skeptics, a lot of people that think it’s untrue, that it’s unprovable and that it’s unreliable. Oh, it’s just been changed over the millennia, centuries and millennia to suit the needs of some like conspiracy organization or something like that. Right? It was invented in this year, 16 hundreds.
And the Catholic Church and all this stuff, that’s the spirit of our day. But the reality is that the way that we interpret the Bible, the way the Bible is translated today, is that we actually, when you pick up the scriptures today, a modern translation, because we found more manuscripts, earlier manuscripts, the Bible is actually more accurate today to its original manuscripts than it ever has been. So do we trust God’s word? Do we trust God’s word to speak? Is God still speaking through the power of the Holy Spirit, through an understanding, a proper understanding of his word?
Can God still speak to us? Can he still speak to our hearts? Or is he just the watchmaker who wound the thing up and then set it down and then walked away, and he doesn’t even care anymore. If that’s your image of God and your mind that you walked in here with today, then maybe we need to open ourselves up to the idea that God is still speaking to us through his word and through the Holy Spirit? Does God still speak to you?
Maybe you believe all that stuff, but you think, well, God doesn’t speak to me. Why would he? Maybe you walked in here today with little self worth, with little value in your mind, and you don’t think God has anything for you. The reality is, is that every single one of us needs to hear the gospel. Every single one of us has something that God is saying to our hearts, to our minds, and speaking into our lives so that our lives can change.
God does speak, and he speaks to you and to me and to all of us. Do you trust God to speak the truth? Is truth even possible in a time when we create our own truth? Right? When we just live your truth.
We talked about that last week. Do you trust God to speak the truth to you through me? Some of you already said yes, and I appreciate that. But the reality is, it’s that we don’t put a lot of trust in people that claim to have truth when it comes to spiritual things these days. That’s just the reality of it.
Most people wouldn’t trust me standing up here because of the culture that we live in. And finally, do you trust God’s word to speak the truth to you through me right now? Do you believe that today could be the day when God speaks to your heart and it really changes everything, that it really means something, that you walk out of those doors at the end of our time here together today, and you are changed, and you are different, and you like that change. You find joy in it. You find life in Jesus.
Today could be that day, and I believe for a lot of us, it’s gonna be. But in order to hear that message today, we gotta receive what God has to say to us. And I’m telling you, the first part of what I have to tell you today is not gonna be pleasant to hear. It’s a hard message to accept about ourselves. It’s a hard message because in our culture, we’re not told that we’re wrong.
Often. You’re not allowed to do that. You’re not allowed to tell me that I’m wrong about something and that it has an impact. So, again, with palms up, ask yourself, do I trust God’s word to speak the truth to me through this message right now? If God created you in his image, how do we get to this point where our identity has been turned upside down?
We read last week in Genesis one that God created Adam and Eve, formed him out of the dust, and then he breathed life into them, right? And then he created. When he created them, he created them in his, like, in his image and in his likeness, male and female, he created them. And when God created them in Genesis chapter two, we learn that God put them in the garden, and he gave them one job to do, and he gave them one rule to follow. Right?
We read about that in Genesis two. And God, the Lord God, commanded the man, you’re free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it, you will certainly die. So what do you think happened? One rule. So what happened?
How do we get where we are now turned upside down? Well, let’s look at Genesis, chapter three. And let’s find out. It says in Genesis three, one. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, did God really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden? Now, is that what God said? No. No, that’s not what God said. In fact, God said they could eat from any tree in the garden except for one.
Right. They had one rule to follow. Right? And so what’s happening here? Notice the questioning of God and the twisting of God’s word, the lie that’s behind these words that Satan saying.
And so the woman said to the serpent, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, you must not eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it or you will die. Now, what did Eve just prove to us through that statement? Almost fell off stage there. My mom’s always worried about that. She tells me all the time, you’re going to fall off stage.
I caught it, though.
All right, we’re back. Okay. What did Eve just prove there? I’m going to step back up this a little bit. What did he just prove?
She knows the commandment, right? She knows what God told them. She knows the commandment, and she knows the consequences of disobeying that one rule. If she disobeys that rule, then they will surely die. They’ll be separated from God, the one who gives them life, and they will surely die a physical and emotional and spiritual and mental and social death.
What happens next? You will not certainly die. The serpent said to the woman, for God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. More lies, more denial of God’s word, more twisting of God’s word. And now we have even an accusation toward God, questioning his goodness, questioning his greatness.
And we have a promise. The temptation here is the promise of glory for Adam and Eve, apart from God and for themselves. See what’s happening here? When the woman saw verse six, when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
And so both Adam and Eve sinned. They both sinned, gave into this temptation to gain wisdom for themselves outside of God’s will, outside of God’s image. They lacked nothing in the presence of God. They lacked nothing. When God created them.
And yet what did they do? They wanted more. They wanted more than what God had given them. And so they ate from the tree that they were forbidden to eat from. Essentially what they wanted is they wanted to replace God in their lives.
They wanted to become their own God. They wanted to have their own creativity, their own power. And look at the results. It’s as if they took on this new identity. They put on a name tag that says, hello, I’m God now, right?
It’s like they were taking on this new identity that I’m in charge, right? I’m the captain now, right? That’s what’s happening here. And so what happens? Well, then their eyes were both open.
It says that then the eyes of both of them are open. That sounds like a good thing, right? It’s like, oh, just open your eyes, man. See the. See the possibilities when you gain this knowledge of good and evil, what were their eyes open to?
Do? You know, they’re open to shame and guilt and sin and destruction. That’s what their eyes were open to. They realized. It says in that same verse, verse seven, they realized that they were naked.
So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. They opened their eyes to shame through their sin, through their disobedience to God. If we read on in Genesis three, we see how the fall devastates every relationship that ever existed. It starts with the relationship between us and God. They had free access.
They were walking with God in the garden. And when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God from the one law that they had to follow, it changed their relationship with God fundamentally because of their sin, because of their guilt, because of their shame. But it didn’t stop there. It changed their relationship with each other. It changed their relationship with creation and even with ourselves.
Sin destroys all of those things. It is changing us. It’s fundamentally changed the world that God created, which was good when he created it. And it has brought sin and destruction in even more destruction. We were called to be image bearers and stewards of God’s creation.
But sin wrecked that. And that is true of all human beings that have ever lived. All human beings have been caught in this destruction of sin. And so our identity, our value that God has put on us, our purpose, that was previously found in the image of God, innate to humanity when he created us, it has been spoiled by sin, because when we seek identity apart from God, our lives are turned upside down by sin. And so, by the end of chapter three, we read that God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden, he put Cherubim and a flaming sword at the entrance of Eden to protect it in the absence of the ones who he had created and given the task of protecting his creation because they were no longer there.
But that’s just Adam and Eve, right? What about the rest of us? Why do I have to suffer because of their sin? Well, the apostle Paul speaks to the ancients who created their own gods to worship instead of worshiping the one true God. And that’s especially true of the Gentiles.
But even ancient Israel gave in to the temptation to worship other gods. Paul wrote in Romans one, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and the wickedness of people who suppressed the truth by their wickedness. Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Paul is saying that if you look out at creation, there should be enough evidence for us to say there’s something beyond us, there’s something greater than us.
And we should be turning our attention to finding that thing, finding him, finding that one who created it, the one who created us. And Paul is saying that people have found God. But look in verse 21, Paul says, for although they knew God, they’d found God. They neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. But their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Although they claimed to be wise, remember, that’s the temptation that Adam and Eve had right, to be wise like God. And so Paul says, yeah, they became wise. But look what happened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images. There’s that word again.
For images. For idols created. Made to look like a mortal human being. And birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them over in their sinful desires of their hearts, to sexual impurity.
For the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served, created things rather than the creator who’s forever praised. Amen, Paul says. And so maybe we’d say, well, that’s not me. That’s the ancient gentiles and the Israelites.
Right? I haven’t created an idol out of wood or stone or. Or metal or, you know, I’ve never created a graven image. I’ve never worshipped a false God. I have never taken part in pagan worship.
So I should be good, right?
The reality is, and Paul points to this later, after he paints a dismal picture of all humanity, that the outcome of sinful human brokenness and idolatry is just as alive today as it was then. We may not carve images of idol out of wood or stone or metal, gold or silver, but we’re just as lost in our identity, because people today are trying to find their identity by looking for it in other things. And anytime we look for our identity, our value and our purpose apart from God, it is idolatry. It is sin. When we seek identity through jobs or money or educational pedigree or celebrity or popularity or power or hobbies or politics or travel or skills that we possess or grades or sexuality or gender or the approval of others, if you’re a people pleaser, or the rebellion against others, if you’re a rebel, and on and on and on.
When we seek identity in these things, that is idolatry. That is the same thing that the ancients were guilty of. It’s the same thing that Adam and Eve were guilty of. We’re taking upon ourselves. We’re putting on a name tag that says, hello, I’m God now.
And this thing that I’ve created, this identity for myself, it’s better, and it’s greater than what God has for me, and that is sin. It’s a sinful attitude. As Paul says in Romans three, there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And these things in which we seek our identity, they cannot define who we are in any meaningful way. And in fact, anytime we seek to define who we are or why we’re here outside of God’s image, we’re trying to please our sinful desire to become our own God instead of worshiping the one true God.
It always leads to our destruction. Always. It always leads to our downfall. Paul tells us what the outcome is when we seek to fulfill our identity in a way that pleases our sinful desire, the desires of our flesh. He says so in Galatians six.
He says, whoever sows to please their flesh from the flesh will reap destruction. Whoever sows to please the spirit from the spirit will reap eternal life. And that’s the bad news. So if we could just sit here for a moment with palms open. If you need to do this again, do this.
This is not an easy message for us to accept today, is it? No one wants to hear that they’re sinful. No one wants to hear that they’re wrong. And that is the bad news. And it doesn’t feel good, does it?
But it’s okay. It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t feel good for us to be in this place where we realize that we’ve sought our image, our identity outside of the image of God. And that’s why the Bible knows no salvation without first recognizing our need for a savior to save us. And yet that’s the bad news.
The good news is that Jesus is willing to be that savior, that God loves us so much that he was willing to send his son to die on the cross so that we could find that identity again in his image. Jesus doesn’t leave us in our sin. And that’s the good news. So what is this good news about? What are we receiving?
What is this message that we need to hear from God today? What’s the solution if I’ve chased after it? All of us have. Every single one of us has chased after some identity apart from God, some sinful way within us that we’ve sought to fulfill us and we found the destruction of it. So what do I do about that?
We have to remember what identity is. The answer you give to two questions. Who am I and why am I here? Your purpose, your identity in the image of God has never changed. And if your purpose, the reason why you’re here, is to be a representative of God, he tells me, he tells you that your purpose can be redeemed and there is still hope.
But how can there be hope if we’ve walked away from him? Because he still loves you. And so it’s that who am I question that is so important when we answer that question with who am I? I am a child of God. I am God’s beloved.
I am God’s redeemed. When we answer that question in that way, when we answer it with the love of God, knowing that God still loves us, then we can find redemption for our identity and our purpose in Christ. Now, I know that brings up a lot more questions and we’re going to answer some of those this week, but a lot of them we’re just going to leave unanswered next week. I’m just going to dangle the carrot right in front of you right now. You have to come back next week to find out more.
But I think there’s some important answers that we need to dig down on today for us to understand the grace of God. In order to understand the grace of God, we first have to understand the love of God. How do we know that God loves us? The most convincing evidence that God still loves you is that he tells you that he does. John 316 for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 1513 Jesus said, greater love has no one than this to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. And that’s exactly what Christ did on the cross. He laid down his life for you and he calls you his friend one. John 316 this is how we know what love is.
Christ laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. And so we are called children of God, created in his image. He loves us. He even calls us his beloved. And so why does that matter?
Because if God still loves you, then he’s willing to redeem you. But because God does love us and he wants us back with him in this right relationship, he wants to find reconciliation between us and him and between us and one another and with his creation and with ourselves even. He wants to restore what we had in Eden. And isn’t that the question? How do we get back to what we had in Eden?
How are we redeemed? God’s love and his mercy aren’t dependent upon anything that you do. Rather, God loved you and had it as his plan to pay the price for our sins so that he could have you back by his side. All the way back from the beginning, he redeemed you by his grace, your faith in Jesus before you ever did one thing in this world, before you ever took breath in this world, God redeemed you through the cross. And so the redemptive work of the cross through Christ rescues us through God’s grace and mercy.
And if you understand what I said earlier about the weight of God’s wrath against our sin, and if you understand the love of God, you understand that the weight of God’s wrath is what was sitting on the shoulders in the soul of Jesus when he was on the cross, that he took that punishment for you and for me, for every person that’s ever lived. And so now we can find hope through the cross. Jesus not only died a horrible physical death through roman crucifixion, but he also experienced the separation between him and God that we should have experienced because of our sin. And so Paul says, if you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified.
And it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved, as scripture says. Paul says, anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame. Tim Keller, in his book every good endeavor, says the gospel frees us from the relentless pressure of having to prove ourselves, having to secure our identity, for we are already proven and secure in Christ. It’s the image of God rescued and restored through the redemption of God by his grace because of his love for you. The gospel tells us that when we sought identity outside of God, we sinned and it broke us.
It destroyed us. And we can’t overcome the guilt and the shame by our own efforts. But instead we can get forgiveness from Jesus and have our identity redeemed by him. And so if you’re going to take anything away from today’s message, if you’re going to receive anything from today, if you’re going to have palms open and receive anything, it should be this. It should be this.
That God’s image is redeemed by God’s grace because of God’s love for you. If you’re going to receive anything today, if you walk out those doors and you want something to change in your life, then you have to receive that God’s image is redeemed by God’s grace because of God’s love for us. So what must we do? Well, first of all, we need to take off this name tag that we’ve created for ourselves. We can no longer be the God of our own lives if we want God in our lives.
And instead we need to put on a new name and it’s beloved and redeemed, and we need to wear that and let it be our identity in Christ. We need to walk out those doors today. Maybe you came in today in control of everything, right? Having your fists clenched in control of your life. But maybe you need to walk out and let God be the God of your life.
That’s how we’re changed. Take off whatever you’ve created for yourself and look for identity in the image of God, living out that image through the redemption of Jesus. And ask yourself if you’re not willing, if you’re not willing to accept that, you must do this. Next week we’re going to talk more about how we open our hearts for God to examine us. But we first need to examine ourselves and ask yourself, this question is whatever identity you’ve put on in place of the image of God?
Is it sustainable in your life? Can it maintain you? Can it lead you to eternal joy and happiness and fullness like the love of christ? Can? Is it good enough for the image of God that you have to ask yourself that?
First, examine yourself and ask, can I still maintain this identity and still have God bless it? Is he willing to do that? Jesus paid the price for our sin and he picks up the broken pieces. He puts us back together in his image. And when he does, our lies are never the same.
And so what’s on your name tag? What name do you need to replace with God’s image with beloved and redeemed? Maybe you’ve put on the name broken or unpopular or adulterer, addict or loser or poor or stupid or whatever name you’ve let the world put on you. Maybe you’ve put good things in your eyes. Popular and people pleaser and star and influencer or rich or intelligent.
Whatever thing you’ve put before God, you’ve put that name on yourself. But even those things will not sustain you. And so I ask you again, do you trust God’s word to speak the truth to you through me, right now? Is God speaking? Beloved, can you accept that God loves you just as you are and he can’t love you anymore and he won’t love you any less.
Redeemed. Can you accept the gift of God’s grace and his mercy through Christ that covers sin? Do you trust God’s word to speak the truth to you through me, right now? God redeemed who you are from the sin which separated us from him. And he did so through the cross, paying the price of sin through his son, Jesus.
And that is the mercy of God. God gave you your identity when he created you in his image. And now he calls you his beloved. And he’s given you a new name as his redeemed. He’s called you as children because he loves you.