Imago Dei - Week 1

What do I want my students to know?

I want them to know what God’s intention and purpose is in creating life, and how He wants us to reflect his image through relationships.

Why do they need to know it?

God is relational, and when we understand His purpose in creating us as his prized creation, we can reflect his image through our relationships.

What do they need to do with it once they know?

Know what God intended

Week 1 Main Point: God created us with intentionality and purpose, and He desires to be in relationship with us.

Passages: Genesis 1:1-2, 9-10, 26-27, 31, 2:8

Introduction:

When we look at the world around us, there are so many things that confuse us, distract us, and that cause us to live opposite of our original purpose.

We have so many choices today to be whatever we want. We can define ourselves in any way that we want. We can believe whatever we want.

But deep down we have a desire to know truth.

The truth helps us to know the WHY behind our existence on Earth. It gives us a reason to live, and helps guide our lives.

Then we have to ask the question: Why do we study the Bible?

We trust in the person of God

We trust in the character of God

We trust in the Word of God

2 Peter 1:20-21- “Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding,[a] 21 or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.”

2 Timothy 3:16-17- “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.”

Now that we have established that truth comes from God, and God has given us His Word to help us know and understand truth, let's take a look at something that I believe to be so foundational to our faith, and our understanding of who we are in Christ.

Transition: We are calling this series Imago Dei; which means “Image of God.” In the Bible, we are told we are created in God’s image, but why is that important?

Let me ask a couple challenging questions:

Who would say they “know” God?

Let me ask it a different way: Who knows of God and who has a relationship with God?

When it comes to a relationship with God, we often can be confused because we view it differently from our other relationships.

Over the next couple of weeks as we seek out what it means to be created in the image of God, how we relate to God and how we know him will become more clear.

Scripture: Genesis 1:1-2, 9-10, 26-27, 31, 2:18, 3:8

God is purposeful

Genesis 1:1-2 - God created the heavens and the earth

9-10 - At this point, we are looking at Day 3 of creation, and this is the first time that we see God say that what He created was good.

The first 2 days focused on the heavens, and now that he was focused on the earth, He said it was good. The reason is because he purposed the earth to be created for us to enjoy.

26-27

31

God created the world, made us in his image - male and female, and he specifically says things he created were “good” and “very good”

God is intentional

God has a plan. He creates so that His creation might glorify Him.

Man decided that they wanted to be “like God,” which really meant they wanted to be God, when really, life comes from being with God, and we can see His plan in redemption throughout the rest of Scripture.

He sent Jesus to restore our relationship with God, and He has given us His Holy Spirit so that we can walk with God.

1 John 5:11-12- “And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life.”

God is relational

Genesis 2:18 - God did not want us to be alone

3:8, 5:22, 6:9

These men “walked with God” just like Adam & Eve

Walking with God brings life

Covid story about walking with Bethany

Genesis 15:6- “And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.”

God’s plan was not ruined by man’s choice to rebel against Him. In fact, in all reality, He could have just started over…

Titus 3:4-5- But—When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, 5 he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit.

I was reading something this week that I thought was important and tied in perfectly with what we are talking about: “Human failure cannot stand in the way of God’s promise.”

This new life also repaired our relationship with God. God is perfect, and so we needed Jesus to help make things right between us and God. We couldn’t do anything to repair that relationship, but God, who is relational, wanted to repair it for us.

Application:

Let’s go back to what we talked about in the beginning because now that we have looked at what Scripture says about God, we know we can trust Him.

All of what we have talked about points to His faithfulness and the fact that He keeps His promises.

We may not be able to see it like God sees it…

We can be in relationship with God.

When we are in relationship with God, we can know that we are loved, fully known, and that we have a purpose.

We can know the truth.