Image of God & Cultural Mandate
Notes
Transcript
Cultural Mandate
Cultural Mandate
To understand what God wants from us, Christians, we have to understand what it means to be made in the image of God. We have spent 9 months, over 14 lessons, discussing what it means to be made in the image of God. We are stewards for God over the world. This includes not only us as created beings but also in specific areas including work, gender, marriage, spirituality, creativity, rationality, freedom and morality. We are called to continue the work that God has began.
“He started with a world “without form and void” and set it in proper order; we are to “tend the Garden”, including both the cultivation of beauty through the arts and toe production of food and other necessities. We are also to engage in the process of learning and discovery through coming to understand the natural world. And we are to do all of this in obedience to God, recognizing His authority over the world so that we cultivate it as stewards, not owners, and do not abuse His property.” Glenn Sunshine
We have seen in our culture and throughout the world authority abused. This began all the way back in the bible including in Genesis. Satan offered something he didn’t have power to offer, Eve tried to rule over Adam, authority was abused. The Fall showed us we are not willing to live within the limits God has placed on us, resulting in broken relationships with God, with each other, with ourselves and with nature.
But there is hope. What has changed?
The ultimate image of God, Jesus, God in flesh, through his death, resurrection and ascension, had paid the penalty for sin in full and the power of sin on our lives is broken. Our relationship with God has been restored. We now can have reconciliation with each other and for dealing with problem of guilt and shame in our lives.
So what is our response? We have talked about all these things about what it means to be made in the image of God, now what?
In Christ our ability to live out our calling has been restored. Sin is not gone but we are now free to carry out our mandate to develop culture as stewards of God. We are going to look at five things tonight. So five ways the image of God and being stewards of that has implications on our lives
It means that Christianity means more than what most people think.
When someone says they are religious what do you think that means? Some sort of moral standard, a set of rituals or actions that you do, doing good, going to church, serving others, etc. But, there is some sort of separation between religion and everything else.
Why is Christianity different? It is a worldview—it affects family, job, recreation, relationships, finances, everything. The gospel affects all parts of our life including the stewardship God has entrusted us with.
2. We need to be active in every sphere of life and have the mindset that everything we are doing is part of God’s call in our lives to be stewards where God has placed us.
What do you think this looks like?
Obviously this does not mean at all times you are to be doing everything (Family, creativity, marriage, work, morality) You guys are not called for marriage right now at this very moment. However—you are called for marriage, and you will have a time in which you are married and you are to fulfill the image of God in your marriage.
When you are in each of these spheres, and they may overlap at times—you will have marriage and rationality at the same time, work and morality, etc. you are called to be active, engaged, not passive, being an ambassador and reflection of Christ in those things. It takes work, it takes effort, it doesn’t just happen, you have to put some effort into things. You are to do it with excellence
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
3. We need to get rid of the idea that Christian service is only done by Pastors, Elders, Full-time ministry people. That is not biblical. What Elders, Pastors, full time ministry people do is for sure Christian service, but so is what accountants, servers, grocery store clerks, mothers, business owner, trash collector. If you are a follower of Christ you are called to be in “christian service” in whatever sphere you are in. How do we know this? Scripture has all sorts of mandates on how we are supposed to live. One of the most frequent overarching statement is to walk in a manner worthy by which you have been called. You have been redeemed, live in a way that shows that. And yet we see obviously biblical texts and examples of appointing leaders but there are commands that eldership is first of all only for men, and for very select men. You are not to hastily lay hands on men—meaning don’t quickly appoint elders.
My point is clearly we see a very small, small portion of men are called to be church leaders, and yet we all have this command to live in a worthy manner and to be stewards for Christ.
We are about to preach through the book of Acts, which is one of my favorite books in the scripture. We are going to see the continued work of Jesus Christ through the apostles. It actually starts with the promise of the Holy Spirit and then the ascension of Christ. Throughout Acts you will see primarily the preaching of Peter, John and Paul. We see a couple other main characters, Barnabas, Silas, etc. But what you will see—look for it as we move through the book of Acts, we see lots of ordinary people doing the work of the ministry. We see soliders, tentmakers, farmers, tax collectors, fishermen, mothers, following Christ and being reflections of Jesus in their walks of life. In chapter 2 the sermon at Pentacost there were 3,000 people saved and they went on to be ordinary people, not a bunch of preachers or teachers but fishermen, bakers, farmers, scribes, parents, caretakers.
4. Evangelism is critically important to the Christian life, but it is not the end all. What else is important and even commanded in the Christian life? Turn with me to Matthew 28.
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
We see 3 commands in the verse---what are the three commands
A) Make disciples (calling people to Christ)
What is a disciple? A follower of Christ; pick up your cross and follow me
But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest
and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.
So we see they are called to make disciples, followers
B) Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
C) Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you
They, we, are called to then teach people about the life in which we are called to live. This is why the local church is imperative. I would argue you see no biblical examples of people coming to Christ and then being out doing their own thing. We are called to be part of the body. In today’s culture that can look differently I get that, their are big churches, small churches, house churches, people would argue with technology they can be part of church via the internet especially during COVID. I wont get into all that but the point is we are called to learn, to be taught. You cannot have someone teaching you if you are not around Godly men and women. Titus 2 calls older men and women to teach younger men and women.
So we see in Matthew 28 and in other passages of scripture that it is more than just evangelism. The Christian faith is a walk and we are called to grow and learn and be edified. Evangelism must lead to evangelism.
This is why we are very strategic in our missions. We have actually stop supporting or not supported people or groups because we believe the biblical model for missions, the Pauline cycle which we see in Acts, is that you call people to Christ and then you make disciples, training them and teaching them along the way.
“We need to learn what it means to be a Christian in our own calling and to help others learn what it means in theirs—and not only in our employment but in our family, neighborhood, community, and nation, in our friendships, our recreation, even in the care of ourselves. And for this we need the support and fellowship of other Christians, our fellow members of the body of Christ.”
5. We need to understand why we matter.
Hopefully through this study you have seen that you are created in the image of God and that has direct affects on all the different areas of your life. Each of us is individually designed and equipped to play a key part that only we can do in bringing about God’s purposes for His creation.
That may sound crazy, but God has uniquely designed each one of us and we each play a role that only you can play. No human can replace the purpose of <child 1> or <child 2>. You <child 3> were created for a purpose, to reflect Christ in your specific areas of life that I can never do, that Mike Brown can never do, that Ray Russ can never do, that Bruce Smith cannot do, that Paul Weimer can never do, that Michelle May can never do, that Darby Smith can never do. You have a circle of influence and a calling that I don’t have. You have skills and talents that are a reflection of a divine creator that I do not have.
Take up this challenge to live out our identity as God’s image on earth, bringing the lordship of Christ to bear in all areas of life, and recognizing that we have a unique and critical role to play, however small it may look to us, in fulfilling God’s purposes for the world.