In His Image

13 For thou hast possessed my reins: Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. 14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: Marvellous are thy works; And that my soul knoweth right well.

Text Psm 139:14; I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

Introduction:

HE CREATED US IN HIS OWN IMAGE

Gen 1:26-27: 26And 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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Image – Hebrew “tselem – (tseh’lem) it means likeness, resemblance. It comes from the root word that means “to shade” or shadow.

He made us in his likeness, our faces don’t bear the glory of God. Just as our own shadow is a dimmed reflection or image of us, in similar fashion we are an image, a dimmed version and reflection of God. Never forget that!

27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

God didn’t great this gender confused world sin created it. God created Adam and Eve, Not Anna and Eve, or Adam and Steve.

But he made mankind in HIS own image. We look at our own image and oftentimes we don’t see a whole lot. You say “Not me preacher, I’m as fine as they get!”

But we don’t think highly of our image. Especially when we read descriptions of the angelic beings in the bible, shining with brightness and glory, or great winged creatures that are fearful and awe inspiring,

Ezekiel speaks of beauty of Lucifer in his original estate Eze. 28:13; Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

Yet none of these amazing creatures were crowned with the greatest glory of all. None of them were created in God’s image.

Heb 2:6,7; …. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?7Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands:

Picture with me the scene in the Garden. God was putting the world back together. Lucifer is off in the distance watching. Wondering what God was doing with the world that was once his dominion. He watched God separate the waters, cause the lands to rise, he saw God populate the seas, land, and air with vibrant life. Then he watched as God knelt down and fashioned something out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life. Then he watched as this new creation stood up and bore the resemblance to God. We were made in HIS image.

I. Wonderfully Made

The Psalmist said that he was “wonderfully made”

B. Every life is significant, important, and has dignity because we are created in the image of God

1. Child of a king or the of child of prostitute – are all created in the image of God.

All life of mankind has dignity, significance, importance because it is created in the image of God. Even unborn life.

Jer. 1:5; Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

When Mary became pregnant with Jesus, she went to tell her cousin, Elizabeth, who was 6 months pregnant w/ Jn B, & Jn B “leaped with joy” within his mother’s womb when Mary announced the news

The infant, John the Baptist, even before birth experienced joy – he was created in the image of God

Image of God is marred & defaced because of sin, but it is still there

We must remember that ALL LIFE IS CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. We must remember this because if we don’t we will devalue life.

If life is Not special – Abortion, infanticide & euthanasia become OK

Dr. Leo Alexander a consultant to the Secretary of War in the Nuremberg Trials. He had extraordinary access to accused Nazi war criminals in the medical community. He wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1949, arguing that compassionate killing of the terminally ill set the stage for the Holocaust:

“WHATEVER PROPORTIONS THESE CRIMES FINALLY ASSUMED, IT BECAME EVIDENT TO ALL WHO INVESTIGATED THEM THAT THEY HAD STARTED FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS. THE BEGINNINGS AT FIRST WERE MERELY A SUBTLE SHIFT IN EMPHASIS IN THE BASIC ATTITUDE OF THE PHYSICIANS. IT STARTED WITH THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE ATTITUDE. . . THAT THERE IS SUCH A THING AS LIFE NOT WORTHY TO BE LIVED. THIS ATTITUDE IN ITS EARLY STAGES CONCERNED ITSELF MERELY WITH THE SEVERELY AND CHRONICALLY SICK. GRADUALLY THE SPHERE OF THOSE TO BE INCLUDED IN THIS CATEGORY WAS ENLARGED TO ENCOMPASS THE SOCIALLY UNPRODUCTIVE, THE IDEOLOGICALLY UNWANTED, THE RACIALLY UNWANTED, AND FINALLY ALL NON-GERMANS.”

You say Pastor what does that have to do with the gospel? It has everything to do with the gospel. We need to get our society back to God for if we don’t unspeakable horrors will unfold.

There is a mindset that is prevailing in our country that godly principles are wrong, that love is hate, and hate is love. They call evil good, and good evil. A mindset that allows a man to walk into a woman’s restroom with no shame and criticizes those that are against it as intolerant and bigoted.

II. Mankind’s Fall

Romans 5:12; 12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Romans 5:12 KJV 1900

12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Adam who was created in the likeness and image of God, created as a dimmed version of the glorified God, dimmed even further when he sinned.

God called Adam out on his sin, and he tried to put it off on his wife……..His wife tried to put it off on the serpent. BUT THEY WERE ALL GUILTY!

Don’t blame someone else for your condition – Where we are right now in life is the sum total of all of the decisions that we have made up until this point. We are a product of our choices.

Adam chose to sin, Eve chose to sin.

As a result death and sin reigned.

David said, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.

But God had a plan, he wasn’t going to leave his glorious creation in this darkened condition.

Gal 4:4; But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

God had a plan to have us reborn IN HIS IMAGE!

III. Christ’s Restoration

Christs Image

Hebrews 1:3 — 3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

Hebrews 1:3 KJV 1900

3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

Notice it says “the express image”

Charakter – (kHa-rak-tar) this is different from Adams creation, it means “the exact expression of any person or thing, marked likeness, precise reproduction in every respect”

Christ came in the likeness of God, and in the likeness of man

1 Cor 15:45,47;45And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. 47The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.

Christ restored the work that Adam’s sin destroyed

Rom. 5:18,19 18Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. 19For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

John 1:12; But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Born the first time after Adam, Born Again after Christ.

1 John 3:2,3; 2Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 3And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

So if we are born through Christ

1What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

Conclusion

Man was created in God’s image, a shadow, but made in the image of God. No other creature did he bestow this glory upon. But now through Christ and if we are reborn IN HIS IMAGE. He has restored what was lost in the Garden, and given us even more through Christ. IN HIS IMAGE

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