The Problem of Being an Image Bearer
Notes
Transcript
We were made in the image of God.
When Jesus was asked ‘is it ok to pay taxes to Caesar?’ He famously asked for the coin. Then this question: Whose image is this on the coin? The conversation ended with render unto Caesar what is and to God what is God’s.
This man was not searching for truth when asking of Jesus. He was hoping to use politics to divide Jesus from His followers.
The man should have then asked the most natural question. The one begging to be asked: What belongs to God? How might Jesus have responded? Would He have looked on this man with compassion and said “Whose image is on you?”
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.”
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
This idea is much less “God has two arms, two legs, etc and much more: we have the unique ability to mirror God’s character to the world around us. If you look at that mirror, can you see Him? When God looks at us as that mirror, does He see the praises of His creation reflected back to Him?
For the world, we are the mirror. Or at least that is how it is supposed to be. AND we have the role of taking worship, praise from this world and pointing it to God. We are the royal priesthood. We fulfill the role of pointing worship to Him. That’s the best way to understand this reflection of God to the world and of the world to God. N.T. Wright
When we do not reflect the character of the goodness of God, we are no longer fulfilling our God-designed role in the world. The world gets a skewed view of the character of God. From the one direction this interrupts the effectiveness of God’s call to salvation. From the other it steals worship that is supposed to be aimed at God. Again, not the original plan. Not the best.
Part of this process takes us through
1 My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.
2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in,
3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,”
4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
5 Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?
6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?
7 Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?
8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.
9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
The imperative here, the command, the force behind the example is ‘love your neighbor’.
Now the story here is of rich v poor but it applies to all discrimination. Whether it be where we grew up ‘the other side of the tracks’ or what family we come from ‘they’ve always been that way’ or gender or skin color or even some physical disability, discrimination is the ugly side of humanity!
When we allow those prejudices to be ok, we skew the image in the mirror!
But when we refuse to pre-judge (be prejudiced) we rightly reflect what God desires to show to humanity and can rightly offer the worship He deserves!
When Jesus was teaching about neighbors they asked Him the very dodgy question: Who is my neighbor? You know what He said in response? He told the story of the Good Samaritan. Remember that story? Who was the hero? That’s right it was that DOG, the Samaritan. They were hated! Half-breeds! Because they married Gentiles 500 years before, in the years of Babylonian captivity. We’d rather walk around your town than through it! But there he was, doing good deeds, reflecting the love of God, being the hero of this story. Jesus used that story to uncover their prejudices. Maybe even to themselves for the first time.
Samaritans huh? So here’s where we land for our final scripture today. We’ll pick up in verse 7, with Jesus already at the well:
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?
12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’;
The story goes on but we have what we need for understanding. Mirroring the character of God means loving your neighbor. Your neighbor includes people you dont agree with, associate with or even like.
Here we have a woman: Jewish men didnt talk to women in public
From Samaria: Jews hated Samaritans
Married/divorced/shacked up: Ok, is she even redeemable? Apparently so, as Jesus talks to her, loves her and offers salvation to her. BTW she accepted. Told her whole town...
As she went and the disciples came they asked ‘Why are you talking...” See the pressure not to cross those lines? He explained ‘the fields are white to harvest’. Samaritans walking toward them.
So are we only able to love those we decide deserve it? Those we deem lovable? Do we only offer the gospel to those we decide are redeemable? I made the comment during SNBS “I have never met, or even seen, a human being Jesus didnt die for”. And I stand by that statement. Every human heart to ever beat is precious to Him! The ones so marred by sin they never make it into the world? Precious to Him! The ones who beat 110 years but somehow never believe on the name of Jesus? Precious to Him. The ones wholly and completely surrendered to a life spent serving Him, poured out as an offering, lifted up for the world to see or hidden in the backwaters of a jungle village. Precious to Him!
No, we dont decide who deserves Jesus. We dont decide who is lovable or redeemable. He already has. He put His image on every human because they/we are all precious in His sight. Precious enough to die for.
So our ability to let the world see Jesus through us, to correctly mirror the character of God to the world is directly related to our willingness to love our neighbor. To love that beating heart! Notice I didnt say our ability to do so. Willingness is all God needs, He’ll work out the good if we are but willing. He’ll make us able, we just gotta be willing.
But there is still a problem with being an image bearer of God in a world in open rebellion to Him: When the world sees me as a Christian, it will hate me. The message of the gospel is foolishness to the perishing. John 15:18-19 reminds us the world hated Jesus so we have to expect it will hate us. That storm will grow dark in the days to come. Those waves will crash and that wind will blow! And it will be aimed at the believer, the image bearer of God. There will be trouble.
But we know the peace-speaker! The one those winds and waves must obey. The one who said Be of good cheer! I have overcome the world!
Vengeance will either happen at the cross or it will happen on judgement day. If it happens at the cross, we live under the reality of it being poured on Jesus. If it happens on judgement day, we will have to realize the full force of God’s wrath.