Who in the World Are We?

Let's Be Clear  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
0 ratings
· 3 views

What does it mean to be created in the image and likeness of God?

Notes
Transcript

Announcements

– Tuesday, May 30th, 5:00 - 8:00pm. We will have a youth girls' Tea Party and Movie Night – watching Pride and Prejudice @ The Allen home (7024 Road 71 N, Pasco). Feel free to invite your friends.
–Thursday Bible Study! Contact Joyce for more information.
–I NEED YOUR FORMS AND DEPOSITS BY NEXT SUNDAY! I will be turning them in on Tuesday.
–If you would like to be baptized would you let me know? We will be having baptisms at the pool in Pasco on July 2nd.

Pray

Lesson

Psalm 139

Let’s start out tonight by turning in our bibles to Psalm 139:13-16
Psalm 139:13–16 ESV
13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 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.
Let’s take a look at this verse by verse and see what it has to say about who we are:
Psalm 139:13 ESV
13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
God forms us. Even in our Mother’s womb God is the one forming us.
The “inward parts” like our guts come from God’s handiwork.
God owns what He created
Psalm 139:14 ESV
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
God’s design and formation of us as people should be praised!
We are fearfully made, we are wonderfully made
The Psalmist, David, is stunned at the engineering, creativity, architecture and ingenuity of his very being!
He didn’t make himself, only God did. Only God could.
His very soul knows that God’s works are incredible
Psalm 139:15 ESV
15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Where we are made is unseen by people, but is known to God.
We can’t fully see or participate in our own growth and development. God can because He created us. He understands every detail of this miracle.
Psalm 139:16 ESV
16 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.
God knows everything about you before you were made. Every day was written for you before you were created.
This extends to our whole lives

Image Bearers

What’s amazing about this passage is how personal it is for David. Mankind, humans, human beings, man, was made in the image of God and David marvels about this.
What does it mean to be made in the image of God?
It means that we were created to represent and Mirror the invisible God visibly before all creation as an act of Worship.
We’ll look at 3 main functions at what it means to be made in the image of God
The Kingly Responsibility
Priestly Function
Prophetic Witness
Then we’ll see how these are fulfilled in Christ

The Kingly Responsibility

Mankind
Genesis 1:26 ESV
26 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.”
God made mankind to rule over all things. That’s that word, “Dominion.” There’s nothing on the earth that man isn’t appointed over.
Christ
Revelation 1:5–6 ESV
5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Christ is not just King, but the King of Kings. He is over those who are over those who have rule or dominion over the earth.

A Priestly Function

Speaking of priests
Mankind
Genesis 2:15 ESV
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
Priests were made “to work.” Work in the bible can refer to working the ground like a farmer or serving someone else. It can also be used as a word to worship. To be a priest is to perform a kind of work. To be a person is to work.
Sometimes we think of work as a bad thing. But work isn’t a result of the fall, just the thorns and thistles.
Christ
Hebrews 2:17 ESV
17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
Christ is the perfect priest. Only God can perform the perfect work of taking the sins off of His people. This is the greatest work ever done.

A Prophetic Witness

Mankind
Genesis 2:16–17 ESV
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

The text never refers to Adam as a prophet, but when Yahweh God tells the man he can eat freely of every tree in the garden (Gen 2:16) except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, warning that in the day he eats of that tree he will die (2:17), the woman has not yet been created. That the woman knows of the warning in 3:2–3 indicates that the man communicated it to her.

A prophet is one who receives God’s revelation and communicates it to others, and the implication of the narrative of Genesis 2–3 is that Adam has carried out this prophetic role.

Christ
Hebrews 1:1–2 ESV
1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
Christ is the ultimate prophet. Whatever He commands is God speaking to us.

So…who are we?

We were created to represent and mirror the invisible God visibly before all creation as an act of worship.
We were made to function as King, Preist, and Prophet before all of creation.
Christ is the fulfillment of all three of these roles, or offices.
Colossians 3:10 ESV
10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Prayer

Next week we’ll talk about the fall so read Genesis 3 beforehand.
Related Media
See more
Related Sermons
See more