Reflecting His Image

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

So this is the last session in the TEC 101 and this title of the session is as you can see up on the slide reflecting his image in Some regards this session could have come first because what I’m about to talk about Really is at the crux of what it means to bear the imago de or the image of God You could really condense Today’s seminar into a pretty simple sentence We could say we are called to reflect God’s image by giving thanks always as we live like non-dualists who are dying to bring life, all the while enjoying the process and embracing the mess. And if you understand everything that I just said, then you pass TEC 101.

And you’re wondering why did you keep me here all afternoon for that? But since I have supposedly 39 minutes left, we’re gonna go ahead and talk a little bit more. I want to flesh out a little bit more for you. What does it mean when we talk about reflecting his image and see the technology works? Reflecting his image is simply another way of saying that we are God’s image bearers. The theological basis for this is found in Genesis 1.27 which says, so God created man in his own image in the image of God, he created him male and female, he created them. The verse is short and sweet, but it needs to be unpacked a little bit more.

What does it mean that God created male and female in his own image? We could spend a whole seminar discussing what theologians have said about that question since the church’s foundation, but we don’t have time to do that tonight. So instead, I want to suggest a simple way to understand what it means to be his image bearer. Now I’m gonna be looking at two aspects of image bearing that serve as a kind of framework in which we can order our everyday lives around. If you buy into those two ideas, those two aspects I’m gonna share, you can think of those as a way of a framework of okay, how can I order my life, and in so doing, be an image bearer of God.

So before I describe this framework, there are a few important things to say about bearing God’s image. Genesis 1.27 does not say we are the spitting image of God. We cannot, nor are we meant to, exhibit every attribute of God. We cannot, for example, reflect God’s omniscience, or his omnipotence, or his omnipresence. Those all fall into the category that we call God’s non-communicable attributes. This should be self-evident, but surprisingly, Some in the early church and even today argue that we can actually approach some form of deity.

There is a whole list of attributes that we can and we must grow in if we are to properly bear his image. And that list includes things like love, mercy, justice, kindness, goodness, long suffering. And these we call his communicable attributes. Communicable means that these are attributes that can be transmitted or passed from one person to another. An important side note on these attributes is that they are not some independent benchmarks by which we evaluate God. And what I mean by that is, let’s take goodness. For example, we don’t examine God’s works and then deem them good based on some external standard. God is the definition of goodness along with every other attribute that we describe to him.

We recognize God’s various communicable attributes in his word and that gives us the proper definition and the application of those attributes. I’m camping on this point because you’ll hear some people say things like, well my God would never. That statement implies that God is being held some standard outside of himself, and you can’t do that. We properly understand God’s concepts like goodness, mercy, and justice only as they are revealed to us through God’s communicable attributes. If it weren’t for the communicable attributes of God, we would be no different than the rest of the animal kingdom. It is by virtue of the fact that we are an eternal soul that we can even talk about being his image bearers.

Well now we have the beginnings of understanding of what it means to reflect his image. We do so by manifesting these attributes he has chosen to transmit to us. But how do we manifest these characteristics of God? What is the proper context in which to do so? Can I live in isolation and display mercy gentleness, kindness. I suppose today’s psychobabilist would say yes as they preach their doctrine of self-love. But any reasonable consideration of these traits would cause one to realize that others, not self, are meant to be the object that receives the outworking of these attributes as we display them. And so we begin to get greater clarity on what it means to reflect his image.

It must, of necessity, involve other image bearers. Image bearing is not a call to solitude or idleness. Earlier, I said that I will look at two aspects of image bearing that serve as a kind of framework in which we can then live our everyday lives. Those two aspects are relationship and responsibility. together, and you can see from my, I’m trying to show with this picture, that they provide together a framework or a scaffold within which we can manifest the communicable attributes of God, and thus properly reflect his image in this world.

Now why focus on these two aspects? What’s the biblical justification? There isn’t any verse in the Bible that specifically tells us that image bearing can be summed up in relationship responsibility, but I believe there is plenty of biblical evidence. Consider these couple of passages. First Genesis 1 28, and God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over everything that moves on the earth. And then we see in in Matthew 22, 37 through 40. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind.

This is the great and first commandment and a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law in the prophets. In these short verses, we have both the first and the greatest commandments God gave man. It’s clear from these commandments that relationship and responsibility lay at the core of what it means to be image bearers. Now as we work through these two aspects, we’ll see that reflecting his image requires us to be ever growing and maturing until he calls us home. And even then, we’ll never stop growing in these two aspects. The implications of what I’m about to share impacts young, old, and everybody in between.

If we consider what God is like in the areas of relationship and responsibility, and accept that we are to reflect his image, it will force us to evaluate what we’re doing with the time he’s given us here on earth. You all know Psalm 90.12 well, so teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Now at this point, some may be thinking, Oh boy, here we go with another message about doing more. It’s true that working on relationship and responsibility is work, but it’s a good work that brings the greatest satisfaction because it’s the purpose that we are meant for by our creator. I like the way that Robert Capen captures what it means to be an image bearer in his book, The Supper of the Lamb.

I think that’s a recommended book in your list we gave you. He wrote, we were given appetites, not to consume the world and forget it, but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great. That is the inconsolable heartburn, the lifelong disquietude of having been made in the image of God. I really think he scratches well at what an image bearer longs for.

Reflecting his image is all about increasing our appetite in the areas of relationship and responsibility for his glory. Now with all that by the way of introduction then, let’s now look at first relationship and then we’ll talk about responsibility. I’ve already shown that relationship deserves to be included in the definition of image bearing because of the first and second greatest commandments to love God and neighbor. You can’t escape the priority of love found in scripture. For God so loved the world, John 3 16, and let us love one another, 1 John 4,7, the fruit of the spirit is love, Galatians 5,22. Love is meaningless if not expressed in the context of relationship.

To say we love without an object of that love is nonsensical. This is true even if God himself. Consider what it means to say that God is love like 1 John 4,16 tells us. When did God become love? Was it after he created man or before? Obviously before. He’s always been loved from eternity past. Now if love is meaningless outside the context of relationship, then we can only understand that God is love because of the relationship that exists within the Trinity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have always loved one another. The glory of the gospel is based on the triune God determining from eternity past to include believers into their fellowship of love.

In covenant circles, this is called the covenant of redemption. It’s what drives the grand arc of the biblical story. The Trinity makes it possible for us to say that God is love. Contrast that with Islam’s understanding of God. Because Allah is only one person, Muslims can’t say that Allah is love from eternity past. In order for Allah to exhibit love, he had to first create man. Islam’s core concept of Allah is that he is all powerful, not all love, which helps understand then their world view and their subsequent actions.

Now given that God is love and love requires relationship to be meaningful, Christians must be committed to relationship with others if they are to be an image bearer. Now I assume everyone here agrees with the assertion that relationships are necessary. You can’t be fruitful and multiply without relationships. You can’t effectively take dominion without relationships and you certainly can’t love without them. The problem isn’t getting everyone to agree that relationships are necessary, the problem arises when we are content to let others do the hard work of establishing and maintaining relationship. After all, isn’t that why God created extroverts?

They can do all that relationship stuff and leave us introverts alone. Now the issue with this line of thinking is that image bearing is not something Christians do in the aggregate. is something we do as individuals. We can’t get away with saying, well, my church has lots of great relationships in it, even if I don’t have any. All believers need to pursue relationships with others. Consider Ephesians 4, 15 through 16. We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which is equipped When each part is working properly, it makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

I don’t see any provisions in there for some of the parts are sitting on the sideline and watching the action. Everybody’s involved. This passage screams relationship and it requires all parts of the body to be involved. Now I don’t have time to even begin to talk about all the one another commands in scripture, but there’s over two dozen of those. it’s a good Bible study sometime, just look for all the one and others and you’ll just see more than 24 of them.

But we’ll have to cover that at a different time. Fulfilling the great commission requires making relationships. Relationship is so essential to what it means to be an image bearer of God. It is no wonder that Satan works so hard to put barriers between individuals. A mother aborts her child for the sake of her own needs. A government excessively requires people to isolate and wear masks all in the name of protecting self. Big tech invents a metaverse where we can use an avatar to project an alternative self to others. More and more self trumps relationship with others. Just go out on Amazon and search for books on self love and you’ll find lots of titles including one like this.

A year of self-love, daily wisdom and inspiration for loving yourself. I did not buy it for some reason. When Satan does encourage relationship, it is in a perverse way. A psychologist recently made the news with her novel idea that mothers can telepathically communicate with their on-born child. She suggests that a mother who is intending to abort her child, have a conversation with it first. This is real. She suggests that the mother convey her deep love for her baby and then explain this isn’t a good time for her to have a child before she asks the baby’s permission to abort it.

That is the epitome of anti-relational evil. Hopefully by now, you agree that relationship is key to be an image better. And it’s something that every believer is called to. The challenge is that relationships can be messy. So hence why Ryan talked about embracing the mess. And they don’t come easy for everyone. If TEC is going to be characterized as a church where everyone has meaningful relationships, it will require each of us to get out of our comfort zone. Except for maybe Jolie, she just kinda lives in a relationship. Let’s face it, I mean, let’s face it, not everybody is as lovable as our bearded mermaid, right?

Am I right? John Calvin and his institutes made this observation. We are not to look to what men in themselves deserve, but to attend to the image of God, God which exists in all, and to which we owe all honor and love. Not first reading that may sound a little condescending, like, well, look past the person in front of you and try to see the image of God if you can. But remember, we are all being changed into the image of Christ, and it is by the Holy Spirit working via the means of human relationship that this transformation is occurring. When we resist relationship with others simply because we find something off-putting about them, we offend God and contradict our own nature as image bearers.

If while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, then surely we can lay down our own biases and preferences and love, fellow image bearer. C.S. Lewis offers a gentle exhortation, I use gentle in quotes, in the weight of glory when he wrote, there are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations, these are mortal, And their life as to ours is the life of a gnat, but it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit.

Leave it to Lewis to land his point with a good poke in the nose. Our ability to treat others badly stems from our failure to see them as his image bearers, however imperfect they may be. First principles in our country like the right to life that underline many of our beliefs and morals today are rooted in the Christian understanding that we are created in God’s image. That’s where these ideas came from. As that understanding becomes forgotten or abandoned, we can expect man’s humanity towards man to erode.

Let’s shift gears then and talk about responsibility. Second aspect here of what it means to embrace being an image bearer. We’ve already seen from Genesis the command to take dominion over the earth, which establishes responsibility as something we’re commanded to do.

This is reinforced in Ephesians 2.10, where it says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. God has preordained each of us a set of good works for which we are responsible.

In what way does taking responsibility reflect God’s image? And if it does, why is it so important to what it means to be an image bearer? It’s one thing for God to say, hey, I’ve outlined some jobs for you to do, but in what way does this also then reflect his image? So just a few scriptures for you to consider. Genesis 1.26, then God said, And get this, this is interesting. God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. I mean, if just pause, I mean, what would you then think would come up next following that? We’re gonna make men in our image.

Why don’t we go ahead and have them take dominion over the fish and the sea and the birds of heaven and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth? That doesn’t that sound like a weird thing that God would say right after. Let’s make men in our image, and here’s what we’re going to have them do. Here God associates bearing his image with taking dominion over the animal kingdom. Later then we find he also placed Adam in the garden with instructionist attendant.

Hebrews 1-4, long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he’s spoken to us by his son whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. Jesus is working to uphold the universe by the power of His word. It wasn’t a one and done. Jesus’ spoken word is continuing going forth and continuing to hold us together. We would just scatter into nothingness if Jesus Jesus dropped his thoughts on this for a second.

In John 5.17 we see Jesus’ response to the Jews who accused him of working on the Sabbath, and he said to them, my father is working until now, and I am working. Whatever Jesus meant by saying he and the father are working until now, it can be reasonably assumed that the works he ordained for us fit into what he and the father are doing. Now some have argued that these good works are all spiritual in nature, such as preaching the word, praying, doing acts of mercy, and they have nothing to do with the earthly aspects of our lives. The whole monastic movement was founded on the belief in the separation between the sacred and the secular.

The sacred, that’s holy. The secular, that’s profane. Now I want you to listen as I read an excerpt from an apologetic, it was written by Saint Jerome, early church father, it was titled The Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Mary. And he, of course, he was very much into Mary and as most of the saints back then were. But he was responding to another critic, an anti-monastic critic named Helvetus who was denouncing the church’s views on Mary and Joseph and the claims that Mary had remained a virgin all of her days. So, so Helvetus had been criticizing these teachings and Jerome comes along and writes this apologetic defending this idea.

But I bring the excerpt to your attention because it demonstrates how a monastic commonly viewed the so-called secular life and its supposed detriment to living a non-distracted holy life. So here’s Jerome describing a day in the life of a person locked into the secular and not set free for the sacred. Jerome wrote, and then from marriage comes screaming babies, noisy servants, children demanding your words and your kisses. You get all anxious over money and trying to protect yourself against loss. Here is a band of cooks girded for an assault on the meat with knives. They’re a gang of dressmakers humming with gossip.

Then a servant announces that the husband as some friends have arrived. So the wife flaps about like a bird all over the house, looking to see if the sofa is smooth, the floor swept, the cups crowned with flowers, the dinner ready. Now tell me, tell me honestly, where in all of this can you find any thought of God? And those are the happy homes.

Now some of you ladies are thinking, well that sounds pretty normal to me, normal day in my life, minus the servants. Jerome gave that as an example of taking away from spiritual life, but based on what Dave was trying to communicate to us in his session, that’s an example of what we would call dying to bring life.

One important concept the Reformation brought with it was the notion that there is no such thing as a sacred, secular divide. This idea struck at the heart of the medieval church theology. It undermined the role of the clergy to act as the administrator of God’s grace to the layman. Martin Luther debunked this idea when he wrote in what’s called an open letter to the Christian nobility, he wrote, it is pure invention that Pope, bishops, priests, and monks are called the spiritual estate, while princes, lords, artisans, and farmers are called the temporal estate. This is indeed a piece of deceit and hypocrisy.

The rejection of the sacred secular divide has continued down through the centuries in Protestant teaching. It’s something we hold to very much. I as a former Catholic, sadly they still hold largely to that sacred secular understanding. A.W. Tozer in the Pursuit of God wrote, the layman never need think of his humbler task as being inferior to that of his minister. Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will not be as sacred as the work of the ministry, will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular. It is why he does it.

The motive is everything. Let a man sanctify the Lord God in his heart and he can therefore do no common act. So then, doing good works reflects the God, who God is, it reflects who God is and works of good when done as an expression of worship to God. Now this point is true, then you must question our culture’s obsession with finding ways to increase leisure and decrease work. Again, if Satan wants to mar the image of God in man, then work and responsibility have to be something that he attacks. Embracing responsibility means looking for ways to expand our sphere of involvement. And image bearer is not asking what’s the required minimum, but what are the opportunities to increase in this regard?

Earlier, Jonathan spoke about Kyperian worldview, which understands every square inch of the universe belongs to Christ. This means that Christ is interested in every square inch and if he’s interested, we should be interested. Now obviously we are finite creatures and so we can’t turn our attention to every square inch. But we can grow our interests in one more inch at a time. Growing in our imitation of Christ includes caring about more things as time and strength allow. Now, if you buy into what I’m saying, the implication is that every image bearer from cradle to grave should be looking for ways to add new responsibility.

The figurative garden we have been placed in always has something else that needs to be done. What our work looks like will vary based on unique factors in every individual’s life. And some responsibilities will stay with us for life and some will come and go. But each of us should be asking, is there another square inch that I could be taking responsibility for? At TEC, we are planting seeds that we pray will set deep roots and yield abundant fruit long after we’re gone. We want to see our people prosper and our children’s children benefit from the work we’re doing and our city flourish and all of this to the glory of God and the advancement of the gospel.

Yeah, I’m getting on in age in case you hadn’t noticed. And it’s a time when I could try to kick back and a lot of the seeds we’re planting now for the last 10 years, I won’t be around to see the fruit. I’m helping lay the foundations for a college. I’ll be lucky to see maybe a few classes you’ll go through that process. But who knows some day what Comfort College, for this example, might look like. But right now, those of us who are here, we’re laying it down, we’re planting the seeds and trusting that God is gonna bear much fruit out of it.

I am known among our leadership team for often asking the question, what keeps us from being a yak? And the YAC stands for Yet Another Church. And what I mean by that question is, why does TEC exist? Does Marysville really need another church? There are several churches right around us that preach the true gospel. Why not just have one or two bigger churches with all the benefits that size brings?

Newcomers to TEC are pleasantly surprised by the vitality they witness. The singing is, shall we say, robust, and the competition for seats is getting fierce. The joy of the people is palatable. Why is that? Are we just in the honeymoon phase? Well if we are, we’ve been in it for 11 years. We like to think that the buzz is because God is blessing our efforts to implement many of the ideas that you’ve heard us talk about today. Now we aren’t so arrogant as to think that we’ve come up with the best or the only way of doing church, but we really do love what we’re doing. My focus has been on our commitment to emphasize the importance of relationships and taking responsibility.

I have found those two areas personally stretching since I by nature tend to be more introvertish. I do enjoy being around people, but I do find it hard to establish a relationship and just do the normal chit chatty thing. Not that I’m opposed to it, but I just, it’s hard. It’s not in some of you in the room, it can identify with that. And I’ve reached the age when our culture says it’s time to kick back and take it a little easy.

I know of no other way of growing these areas than to make them a matter of prayerful consideration and then stepping out and pursuing them. In other words, you have to believe these are part and parcel of what it means to reflect the image of God and then do them. It’s encouraging to see in many ways in our fellowship the young and the old actively applying these things. It’s the desire of our elders that everyone would be able to clearly identify how they are growing in relationships and taking responsibility. I have found it personally helpful to read more in order to expand my interest, and Ryan beat that drum pretty hard.

Now, I know there’s guys in this room right now who are saying, but I’m not a reader. And so, although I haven’t read Jaco, I’m gonna try to impersonate Jaco right now, and I’m gonna respond to those guys that are saying, but I’m not a reader, and I’m gonna say, read more. That’s what Jaco would say if he was there. Our ability to care for more things starts our willingness to care about them. A.W. Tozer, again, in the knowledge of the Holy this time wrote, the yearning to know what cannot be known, to comprehend the incomprehensible, to touch and taste the unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man, deep call unto deep and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the fall, the soul senses its origin and lawns to return to its source.

I think Tozer’s right. I believe a longing to return to the source, as Tozer calls it, requires us to want to be the best reflections of his image that we can be, and that requires us to grow in relationship and responsibility. And let’s pray. Well, Father, as we come to the end of the seminar, we do thank you for the occasion to have gathered. I thank you for these brothers and sisters that have given up a precious weekend to be here and to listen to us talk lots. And I just pray that you would have taken our words and that you would have applied it to individual hearts in the appropriate way. And that as we reflect on what it means to be TEC, that’s how we would certainly be thankful for it, but that we’d also be thoughtful and mindful of what is it that makes TEC TEC.

On one hand we are yet another church, hopefully a biblical church, and yet there is a secret sauce here. There are some things we’ve tried to apply and Father, the fruit seems to be abounding these days. Protect us, keep us from being arrogant, being prideful, but that we would be continuing to grow and applying our faith with all due diligence and that as you look down, you’d be pleased to bless our efforts and just continue to carve a way ahead for us that you want us to follow. We just ask this now in your son, Jesus’ name, amen.