The Original Commission

Grace and peace to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Segue From Discipleship

Last week, we concluded our series on discipleship. There we talked about “What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?” We were dwelling on the idea that Jesus says those who would come after Him must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Him to die. Which by any standards is a terrible way to get people to follow you. But there is something so amazing about Jesus, something so beautiful and powerful about the gospel, that countless men and women throughout history have dedicated their lives to following Him, some even literally giving up their lives because they couldn’t stop following Him!

These people followed Jesus wherever He sent them, lived just as He lived, served just as He served, and loved others just as He loved.

Introduction to Missions

And that is the heart of our theme for this month. Missions is essentially going wherever Jesus calls us to go.

When we think of Missions, we would normally think of:

The Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20: go ye therefore into all the world and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

I think we imagine Missions as our duty or our responsibility. We think “Wow, look at all the people out there who don’t know the gospel! We need to go and do something about it!”

So we think of mission trips, conducting VBS and gospel rallies in a faraway country, teaching English to children and performing songs and skits about Jesus.

We measure the effectiveness of these missions by how many people attend, and ultimately how many people decide to confess that Jesus is Lord and obey Him in baptism.

Those are good and meaningful things, but today I want to suggest to you that the idea of “mission” is much bigger than that.

We’ve been forced to rethink a lot of things thanks to COVID— everything from work-life balance to the question of “What is church if we can’t meet altogether on Sunday?”

We’ve also had to rethink the idea of missions. What is mission if we can’t go overseas to conduct VBS? What is mission when we can’t hold church events to invite friends? Does the church stop doing missions if we are forced into lockdowns and circuit breakers?

That’s why for the rest of this month, myself, brother John Then and elder Peter Lim will be outlining the biblical ideal of missions.

Missions is more than a two-week mission trip somewhere else. It’s more than organising evangelistic gospel rallies with large crowds and mass baptisms. It may involve those things, but they are not the whole thing.

Because at its core, missions is not something you can put on a calendar.

We don’t do missions; we live missional lives. And for the next 20 minutes or so, we’ll unpack what that means, starting at the very beginning, all the way back in Genesis.

Imago Dei

If Matthew 28:18-20 is the Great Commission that Jesus gives to His church, then Genesis 1:26-31 is what we may call the Original Commission given to all people.

This is where God creates humanity. It’s the high point, the climax, the great conclusion of the six days of Creation. And as God creates humanity, God explains what He created them to be and to do.

And this is what it is: Our Original Commission is to be the image of God. Everything else in this passage grows out of this basic idea.

Now, what does that mean? What does it mean to be the “image” of God?

Well, the word for “image” is the Hebrew word “tselem”.

This word can mean “figure”, “likeness”, “replica”—a thing that looks like something else—but tselem is also used to refer to “graven images”.

As in, “idols.” As in, the statues of stone and wood and metal that other pagan nations use to worship their gods. What on earth is that word doing in Genesis 1?

Well, we have to ourselves in the minds of the ancient Israelite readers. To them, the story of Creation is also the story of God building a temple for Himself to live in. This was something that Israel’s pagan neighbours also did. The Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians—they all had their own creation stories where the gods would create the world.

And they would finish their creation by building a temple. And the last thing they did in that temple was to install an image, an idol or stone or wood or metal to represent their presence. It was a visible reminder to human beings about the invisible god who was in that temple space. People would look at that idol and say, “That’s our god or goddess.” The idol or statue represents the god or goddess because it contains some presence of the divine.

So Genesis 1 is taking that pagan story and that understanding, and they’re saying that Yahweh, the God of Israel, created the whole world as His own temple. And to complete the temple, He is going create an image of Himself. He needs representatives in His temple to demonstrate His power and presence. He wants images that can mirror His authority, His love and grace, His beauty and perfection.

And He chooses that man will be His image.

There’s a reason why we Christians don’t have idols and statues. It’s not because God doesn’t have an image. God has an image—it is each one of us.

Let that sink in for a moment. You are the image of God. We don’t do it perfectly, and we’ll get to that part later. But I don’t think any of us can fully understand how incredible this was from the very beginning: you are fearfully and wonderfully made by a Divine Maker who wanted and chose you as His representative here on earth! Of everything God ever made, God chose you to represent His love and goodness and power to all creation!

We live in a culture that defines us by our productivity, how many KPIs we hit, what schools we go to and whether we get perfect GPAs, how much stuff we have. And maybe we have communicated something similar from this pulpit: that your Christianity is about how much you do—how early do you wake up to pray every morning? Did you read the whole Bible this year? How many people did you invite to church? How many ministries are you serving in? How many countries did you go to do mission trips?

And so we start to believe that our mission as human beings is, first of all, to do all these things. And we work ourselves to death to do them, only to end up exhausted and burnt out all the time, and we feel guilty because we’re not doing enough, we’re not serving faithfully in church enough.

But what I see in Genesis 1 is that our mission, our purpose here on earth, is not about those things. God never wanted us to work ourselves into His love. God didn’t create us and then say “Okay, now you work hard and follow all My commands and I’ll see if you meet My expectations to be My image.”

God says, “You are My image; I created you like that! Now go and be what you were always made to be.”

2 Ways

Our passage today mentions two dimensions, two ways of what it means to live as God’s images. The first is about how we rule over creation. We care for it and nurture it as God cares for and nurtures it. The second is about how we are to relate to one another just as the Godhead—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—relate to one another. There is a third element that I won’t discuss today, but it is the result of the first two: for if we rule over creation as God rules, as we are involved in relationships as God is relational—when we do as God intends, we live righteously, and we glorify God by our righteousness. Ruling over Creation, Relationship with One Another, and Righteousness before God. Let’s take a look at each of these briefly.

Ruling over Creation

We’re in verse 26. The first thing God says is that mankind will “have dominion” over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and over all the creatures of the land.

What does “dominion” mean? At the most basic level, it means to be in charge of, to rule over. To have dominion is to have power over something or someone and control what they do.

Unfortunately, “dominion” is usually thought of as a bad thing. We usually say that someone “dominates” when they have absolute power to do whatever they want, and no one can disagree with them. We might hear “dominate” and think “dictator” or “someone who rules with an iron fist.” We think of warlords like Stalin or Hitler or Mussolini. Everyone feared them because they had all this power to do whatever they wanted, and they used it to bring hurt and war and pain to others. Is that the kind of oppressive dominion that God meant for us to have?

No, obviously not. As one of my Harding professors calls it, God’s intent is that we have a “loving dominion”, not an abusive one. This kind of dominion allows creation to grow and flourish and mature into its fullest potential. It is not a dominion that exploits other people to make them do what we want.

We can have this kind of loving dominion because we are made in the image of God. We already have a model of what loving dominion looks like.

So far in the story of Genesis 1, how has God used His dominion? Does He command? Does He exploit creation for His own pleasure? No, God’s dominion is the kind that brings life. God creates, and it is good and beautiful. When the world was originally dark and formless and chaotic, God introduces light and beauty and order. When everything was barren and lifeless, God brought fruitfulness and life. God’s model of power and dominion and rulership is the kind that gives life. And when we have dominion in the same way, that is when we become the image of God.

How do we rule over creation? What’s our relationship to things?

Relationships with One Another

The second way that we are God’s image is in the way we relate to one another. Let’s look at Genesis 1:27. Most of your Bibles, if you’re referring to them, will have this verse indented differently from the rest. Something special is going on here with the creation of mankind.

There is a lot that could be said about this verse, but the point I want to make today is that God designed humanity as a community just as God Himself is a community.

As Christians, we believe in One God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Bible doesn’t use the word “Trinity”, but it is undeniable that God interacts with the world as the Father who creates it, and as the Son who becomes flesh to live in it, and as the Spirit who continues to live within us even now. When Jesus is baptised in Matthew 3, the heavens open and the Spirit descends on Jesus in the form of a dove, and what does the Father say? “This is My Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The Father delights in the Son because the Son obeys His Father—there is a relationship of love going on there.

And so in the same way, man and woman together are the image of God. If we were to look ahead in Genesis 2, God will say that it is not good that man should be alone, because man or woman alone is incomplete. And when man and woman come together in marriage and become one flesh, they literally create new life in the form of a child—a new creation who is in the image of his or her parents.

We fulfill the image of God because we relate to one another in love.

We have been taught to think of Christian faith as something that happens between me and God. Let’s look at Communion. We keep to our own seats, we listen, we take the bread and wine in silence to reflect on our own sins, and we are completely unaware of the community that we are doing it with. Life somehow happens in isolation.

But that was never the original design. God designed us for community. God designed us to have relationships to one another. When the pandemic first began in 2020, I vaguely remember that the media was using the term “social distancing.” But they gradually began to change the term to “safe distancing.” I don’t know who started that change or if that person was a follower of Jesus, but I believe they got it. We are not supposed to be socially distanced because God designed us for relationships. We are most fully human, most in accordance with God’s design, when we are in community, when we share our life with others in mutual self-sacrifice.

Christ the Image of the Invisible God

So this is our mission as human beings. This is our Original Commission: to be the images of God who

Rule over creation with a loving dominion,

Relate to one another in love

And in so doing, we glorify God.

Of course, as we all know, it doesn’t take long for us to fail our Original Commission.

Instead of ruling over creation in a way that brings life, we have selfishly abused and exploited creation for our own comforts. We see that most clearly in all the conversations about climate change nowadays.

Instead of relating to one another in love, we get angry with each other. We say harsh things that tear each other down rather than build each other up. The history of humanity all around the world is a story of certain groups of people discriminating and devaluing other groups of people, whether that was based on race or gender or intelligence or countless other factors.

Humanity has failed at its Original Commission, and we desperately need a way home. We need to become again we were created for. But we need help. We need someone to come and show us what it means to be the perfect image of God, and then to help us become that image again. Because we certainly cannot do it on our own.

And that brings us to Jesus. Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Jesus in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Jesus who has reconciled all things to Himself, who has made peace by the blood of His cross.

Jesus is the image of God that we were all supposed to be from the very beginning. What Adam and Eve failed to do, Jesus Christ has done perfectly. The Original Commission that Adam and Eve failed to fulfill, Jesus Christ has fulfilled perfectly. He lived a perfectly righteous life before God, never once committing a sin or giving in to temptation. He has complete mastery over creation—water turns into wine at His command; the winds and the waves of the sea stop because He says so. And He relates to humanity in the most loving way possible: by laying down His own life so that we may have life again.

And then when He is raised to life again, He turns to us and says, “Now you go and do likewise. Be My Image. Go ye therefore and live as I live, love one another as I have loved you, be perfect as I am perfect. Not through your own effort and striving, but by the Holy Spirit who lives in you and transforms you into the image of Christ.

“And while you are living out that kind of life, make disciples along the way, baptise them, and teach them to be the image of God as I have shown you.”

The Great Commission of Matthew 28 grows out of the Original Commision in Genesis 1. The Great Commission is what naturally happens when we are faithful to our Original Commission.

Conclusion on Missions

Today I hope that you leave with an expanded view of missions. Missions is so much more than just one of the requirements of the Christian life. It’s not about keeping a rule or completing a task; it’s about living a life. We don’t do missions; we live missionally. We live with purpose, because that is how we were designed from the very beginning.

If you’re looking for an application to this sermon, this is it: what if we lived our daily lives through the lens of missions? Meaning, what if missions wasn’t something out there, one week a year, but something that we get to do day in and day out? That means everywhere you go from the moment you step out of this building or log off the livestream is a mission opportunity.

I don’t mean this as a burden; it’s not meant to be “Wah now I need to do missions all the time??” But the time you spend with your family this afternoon, when you walk your dog, your next Zoom call, the kind of entertainment you choose—that too is a place to ask ourselves: how am I being the image of God in this situation? In everything I do, how am I ruling over creation in love, or how am I relating to other people in love?

Concluding Prayer

Let us pray.

O Lord our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You who spoke the world into being, You who set the stars in their place and the planets in their orbit; You who brought forth the beauty of the earth and the splendour of the skies; somewhere in Your divine plan, You chose to create us, man and woman as the image of God, that we may carry Your power and goodness and beauty throughout the world, so that the world may know that there is a God who lives and reigns forever and ever.

Merciful God, hear our confession: for we so often fail to be Your images. Instead of ruling over creation with love, we abuse and ravage it. Instead of relating to one another in love, we divide ourselves with barriers of hate selfishness. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, and restore us to the image You designed us to be through the blood of Jesus Christ our Saviour.

As we go forth today to live Your mission, open our eyes and our ears to receive Your invitation. Sanctify every corner of our lives as a mission field, that we may live out our original commission in the rhythms of daily life. Lord, let every conversation be a mission field, whether with family or friends or colleagues. Lord, let every mealtime be a mission field, where we share life as we share meals. Lord, let every digital interaction be a mission field where we radiate the light of Christ in a place so often consumed by darkness.

Through Jesus Christ we offer this prayer, the image of the invisible God, in whom divine fullness was pleased to dwell. To Him be glory and honour and dominion forever and ever. Amen.