Believe - Humanity

Introduction

Christ invites all to go from creations to children.

Mark Taylor shares a story about John Lasseter, who was Pixar Animation Studios’ director of the hit film Cars. He was talking with Michele Norris on National Public Radio. She commented on the amazing photo-realism of the film, which was entirely created by computers. “The cars glisten,” she said. “It looks like we’re seeing photography.” But she had a question for him. “With everything you can do with computer-generated animation, are there still limitations?” Norris asked. “Absolutely,” Lasseter replied. “The more organic something is in the way it looks or the way it moves, the harder it is to create it with a computer.” This was after he mentioned that every frame of the feature-length film required an average of seventeen hours to create. According to the Los Angeles Times, production costs for Pixar films average about $140 million. Now compare this to a Wall Street Journal review that appeared two weeks after this interview describing a summer exhibit at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. This review was about photography, not computer-generated anything. No costs were mentioned because photography is far less expensive than computer generated graphics. In the Wall Street Journal review, the subject was totally organic. A brief description from the review says, “One canvas in magenta red has curling squares of what looked like skin or material; another has furry brown hairs sprouting on green and orange stripes; and on a third, lip-like shapes float on a gray-white background.” The subject of these abstract photos? Magnified close-ups of tree bark. “The closer one gets to something man has made, the more its imperfections are obvious,” said Dr. Lewis Foster many years ago. On the other hand, “The more we magnify something God has created, the more we see its perfection.” In looking at humanity today, we learn about the creation of God. Not just the creation of God, but the fall of mankind. But not just how mankind has fallen, but also how we can or have been now adopted back into the family of God as his children.

Theologian, pastor, and author John Calvin writes, “our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.” As we continue in our combined Sunday School and sermon series today, the next step is to look at humanity. In this series we have been taking a step back from looking at what God teaches within one specific passage from scripture. Instead we are looking at the whole of scripture. So today we look at what the whole of scripture teaches us about humanity. As we do, we see how the entirety of scripture is God revealing himself to his people and teaching us what we believe, what we should do, and who we should become. All of this is in light of who God is. Therefore, today we are looking at three truths about us as humans.

Created in God’s Image Entrusted to Care for God’s Creation

Genesis 1:26–27 ESV

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and 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.

So God created male and female in the image of God. This is commonly referred to as the Imago Dei. Throughout Genesis chapter one, God looks at what he has made and says that it is good, it is good, it is good, it is good, it is good. But then we get to humans and things change. God looks at man and woman, and he declares them to be very good. (Insert more)

Eric Miller tells us that the sixteen-ounce jar of honey in your pantry exists only because tens of thousands of bees flew some 112,000 miles in a relentless pursuit of nectar gathered from 4.5 million flowers. Every one of those foraging bees was female. The females did all the work. By the time each died—living all of 6 weeks during honey-making season—she had flown about 500 miles in 20 days outside the hive. As these bees were flying themselves to death, production inside the hive continued. A bee carries nectar to the hive in her “honey stomach.” Upon arriving at the hive, the bee is greeted by a young homebody called a receiver bee. The receiver bee relieves her of the load of nectar. This bee deposits nectar into a cell, reducing its water content and raising its sugar level by fanning it with her wings and regurgitating it up to 200 times, killing microbes along the way. Doesn’t really sound like a pretty sight, does it? More bees surround this cell and others and fan them with their wings 25,000 times or so, turning nectar into honey. When the honey is ripe, wax specialists arrive to cap off the cells. That is how every single ounce of every single honey pot, bottle, or jar in the world—hundreds of thousands of them—is brought into being. Holley Bishop, an awed amateur beekeeper writes, “every gulp of raw honey is a distinct, unique, unadulterated medley of plant flavor; a sweet, condensed garden in your mouth.” God created all things, including bees and honey, good. But for as amazing as the production of honey is, it doesn’t fit into that last category. The category of being, very good. Very good is reserved for that which is created in the Imago Dei, the image of God. In other words, us.

Question 10 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “how did God create man?” The answer is, “God created man male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures.” So, we are made in the Image of God. What does this mean? No one knows, exactly. But it does mean that humans are different from the rest of Creation. We are set apart and uniquely gifted by God and entrusted by God. We were not only created in God’s Image, but we were created to have dominion over the creation. We were entrusted by God to creation to care for his creation. The first truth about humanity is that we were created in God’s Image entrusted to care for God’s creation.

Humans are Fallen for the Glory of God

Romans 5:18 ESV

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

So God created us in his image, but then humanity fell in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve fell in Genesis 3. God’s good creation has become tainted and affected by sin, by things not being the way that it ought.

In 1997 Timothy McVeigh was convicted of bombing the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. During the trial one of McVeigh’s old army friends testified in court and made a revealing observation about human nature. According to Jo Thomas in the New York Times, the friend said, “I’d known Tim for quite a while. If you don’t consider what happened in Oklahoma, Tim is a good person.” Some of us may have a similar outlook on ourselves as we consider the prospect of standing before the Judge of all the earth someday. No, we likely have not been found guilty of murder, but we can downplay our sins and judge ourselves by what we have done right. We think, If this or that isn’t taken into account, I’m a good person.

Paul responds to this notion well in Romans 3 where he quotes a few different Psalms of the Old Testament saying that, “as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” It’s a fun passage, isn’t it?

So why do you think God allowed this to happen? Why did he first create us in his image, but then allow them to stumble? Professor James Anderson refers to the great American Reformed pastor, Jonathon Edwards when he says, “Edwards argues that the Old and New Testaments present one consistent picture: God created the world not primarily to promote human happiness, but to manifest his own glory.” When we look at scripture and the world around us as existing for and pointing to the glory of God, it suddenly becomes clear. Our state of fallenness shows the great love that God has for us. If Adam and Eve had not stumbled into sin, there would be no reason for the Cross. If there was no reason for the Cross, we never not see the fullest extent of God’s love for us.

Our Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 14 asks, “what is sin?” The answer is, “sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.” Sin separates us from God, and it is separation from God. Sin occurs anytime we do, say, or think something that we should not have done, or we don’t do, say, or think something that we should have done. Without this separation, Christ would have never bridged the divide that was created at the fall. Therefore, the second truth about humanity is that we are fallen so that God would be glorified. Therefore, we experience the fruit of the greatest act of love of all time.

Not only Creations of God, We are God’s Beloved Children

Romans 8:14–17 ESV

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Creation in the image of God is followed in the Bible shortly thereafter by the fall. The fall is answered by Jesus Christ coming to earth to die on the Cross and to rise again for the forgiveness of our sins and to give us eternal life. But if we stopped at forgiveness and eternal life, we would miss one of the greatest benefits that we are offered because of the Cross. The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks in Question 34, “What is adoption?” The answer is “adoption is an act of God's free grace, whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all the privileges, of the sons of God.” In Genesis 1-2, we are created by God as his creations. But in the New testament, we are gifted the opportunity to go from creations of God to God’s Beloved children.

In Reader’s Digest, a contributor told of an Aunt Ruby and Uncle Arnie who had adopted a baby boy after five years of trying unsuccessfully to conceive. To their surprise, a short time after the adoption, Aunt Ruby discovered she was pregnant, and she later gave birth to a boy. One day when the two boys were eight and nine years old, the teller of the story was visiting Aunt Ruby, and a woman in the neighborhood came to visit. Observing the children at play, the woman asked, “Which boy is yours, Ruby?” “Both of them,” Aunt Ruby replied. The caller persisted. “But I mean, which one is adopted?” Aunt Ruby did not hesitate. In her finest hour, she looked straight at her guest and replied (slowly), “I’ve forgotten.” When we are adopted as God’s children, we quickly come to cherish our heavenly Father’s forgetfulness. For the Father, he forgets not which one of us are adopted, but rather, he forgives our deepest and most painful sins. Instead, he looks upon us as his beloved Child. When you imagine God’s impression of you, how do you envision him? Is he saddened by you? Grieved? Disappointed? Mad? We don’t need to guess, and we don’t need to live with a false impression of how God views us. We see it in one of our most commonly used blessings, the Aaronic blessing of Numbers 6 where Moses says to Aaron,

Numbers 6:24–26 ESV

24 The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Did you catch how the Lord looks upon us? Friends, let us never allow the world, the devil, other people, or simply ourselves tell us any differently. We were created as the pinnacle of the Genesis creation story, and today we have become God’s Beloved children. And if you haven’t, well, let’s talk about what it means to repent of sin and confess of your faith in Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

So, here are three truths about humanity. We are created in the Image of God entrusted to care for God’s creation. The fall of all humans prepared us to experience the great love of God, which is Jesus Christ’ death for us at the Cross. Finally, we all have the opportunity to go from creations of God to children of God.

An article written by Ed Stetzer of Lifeway Research says that fewer people may be calling themselves Christians in the future. More importantly the trend is a good thing. Commenting in the article, Greg Jao, national field director of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, agrees. He says this is good because more people will be more honest about their faith. The meaning of “Christian” will be clearly defined, which will in turn create new opportunities to share the gospel. Gone are the days of culture Christians, nominal Christians, or non-practicing Christians. Stetzer and Jao say the number of people with a real faith in Jesus will not diminish. Rather, there will be fewer people who identify themselves as Christian due to the culture. Jao says, “Twenty years ago you might talk to somebody about Jesus, and they would say ‘Oh, sure, sure. I’m already Christian; I go to church occasionally.’ Well, now you have people who say, ‘I don’t go to church at all.’ And because they don’t go to church at all, they’re a little bit more open to hear about Jesus and to consider who He is.” Jao says the trend will also be good for churches because they will tend to become more united and better focused. He says the overall effect will be to actually make people think about spiritual things. When they actively think through faith, they will have a better chance of encountering the truth of the gospel.

In so doing, they are responding to Christ’s invitation to go from creations of God to children of God.