“Created in His Image”
Genesis 1:26-31
Sunday, June 19, 2011 (Father’s Day)
Introduction: “Encouraging Words,” by Barbara Johnson
“Someone said that encouragement is simply reminding a person of the "shoulders" he's standing on; the heritage he's been given. That's what happened when a young man, the son of a star baseball player, was drafted by one of the minor league teams. As hard as he tried, his first season was disappointing, and by midseason he expected to be released any day.The coaches were bewildered by his failure because he possessed all the characteristics of a superb athlete, but he couldn't seem to incorporate those advantages into a coordinated effort. He seemed to have become disconnected from his potential. His future seemed darkest one day when he had already struck out his first time at bat. Then he stepped up to the batter's box again and quickly ran up two strikes. The catcher called a time-out and trotted to the pitcher's mound for a conference. While they were busy the umpire, standing behind the plate, spoke casually to this young man. Then play resumed, the next pitch was thrown - and the young man hit a home run.
That was the turning point. From then on, he played the game with a new confidence that quickly drew the attention of the major league team. Soon after he was called up to the majors. On the day he was leaving, one of his coaches asked him what had caused such a turnaround. The young man replied that it was the encouraging remark the umpire had made to him. The young man said: "He told me I reminded him of all the times he had stood behind my dad in the batter's box. He said I was holding the bat just the way Dad had held it. And he told me, 'I can see his genes in you; you have your father's arms.' After that, whenever I swung the bat, I just imagined I was using Dad's arms instead of my own."
This morning we will look at the importance of giving encouraging words; the importance of how we are created in God’s image, and understanding what this means for our lives.
I. Words are Powerful- (Ephesians 4:29; 6:4)
a. Longing to be accepted- The truth is, we all long to be accepted by
others. First and foremost, whether we admit it or not, we want to be accepted by our parents and our family. Too many people live in a family that struggles to be encouraging to one another. While we don’t have a negative environment in our house, I see how it is all too easy for my kids to say mean things to each other. And that is true in most families, where too many people live in an environment where there is negativity, and putdowns. When we miss out on our parent’s approval, it can have a tremendous negative impact on our lives.
I’m sure many of you could stand up right now and give story after story of the struggles you have had to find acceptance and approval. Even when we are older, and have moved away from our families, we still desire this acceptance. In fact, I have had many counseling sessions where people are struggling with their self-esteem because they did not get this approval from their father, or mother when they were young. It forever nags at them.
We need to understand that words are powerful! You have heard the old adage: ‘Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words can never hurt you.’ But this is not true. Words can hurt us a lot, and can affect a person deeply. Words can cause deep pain and scars.
At one particular Weight Watchers meeting, the people were talking
about what to do when people said something negative or mean to them. For
example, if someone said: ‘I can’t believe you ate that whole thing!’ The
responses could be: ‘Well, I just got a double dose of nutrition.’ OR
‘I believe in finishing what you started.’ OR ‘My parents didn’t raise
a quitter.’ OR ‘Now I have more room in the fridge now for healthy foods.’
(Amusing Grace, p. 366; #1251)
Now this is a humorous way to try and put aside words that are actually hurtful. But the better way for us, is to be a people that seeks to not be hurtful with our words.
b. Words that build up- In the book of Ephesians, chapter 4, Paul is
trying to help people understand what it means to live in unity; what it means to live a new life in Christ, and what the rules are for this new life we have in Christ. In verse 29, Paul states the importance of our words, when he says: “Let no unwholesome words proceed from your mouth, but only that which is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.”
The apostle Paul is telling us that we should shun all bad language, especially that which is hurtful to others. We should speak words that are encouraging and helpful and that build up. All other words are worthless. We should figure out what the need is, and come up with those words that will give grace. Now, this doesn’t mean that we can’t challenge others, or seek to keep others accountable, or confront others when they have done us wrong. But it is to be done with love, and with words that bring grace, and words that are meant to help and build the person up so that they might live a better life.
As today is Father’s Day, it is important to realize that in our society, one of the great challenges, is that there are too fathers who are either not in their children’s lives, or who provoke their children. The call of a father is to teach, and love, and encourage, and build up. Why are so many fathers not doing this? Why do we allow this as a society?
Ephesians 6:4 says: “And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
So the challenge to us fathers here today is to bring up our children with words of instruction; instruction from the Lord. And all of us can help to do this, in that the kids who don’t have fathers need extra love and instruction. Too many fathers in our world don’t follow the Lord, so they aren’t following the pattern of what it means to be a father; they aren’t teaching their children with the instruction of the Lord! As a church, we need to make sure all children who come to our church have this love, and encouragement, and instruction!
It would be nice to live in a world where all fathers were present and loving and teaching their children about the Lord. It would be nice to live in a world where fathers were a positive influence and a good example to their children. But this is not the case. So what are we to do?
II. Created in His Image- (Genesis 1:28-31; Psalm 139:13-14)
a. In His Image- The first and most important step is to understand who
we are. We are children of God, created by God, created in the image of God. Let’s read it again; Genesis 1:26- “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness;… So God created humankind in His image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them. God saw everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good.”
Let us look briefly at several important aspects mentioned here…
1. God said- First of all we see that it was God who had the idea to create
us; GOD SAID. This idea was an idea for relationship; a relationship that is personal. It is to be a relationship that is more special than the relationship God has with the other parts of creation, because through this idea of creating man and woman, God was forming creatures that could relate to Him, and someone who could be His image in the world.
2. Let us make- Secondly, there is the idea of making. God says, “Let us
make.” When you make something, it takes thought, and energy, and care. God personally was going to make humankind; it was His doing. It was not a haphazard event, but was something that was well planned out. We were to be made with purpose and direction. We were to be made with a call (‘to be fruitful and multiply’ and ‘to govern the world and all that is in it.’) And we were given the promise of God’s provision; God would provide for us all that we need.
3. God created- Last, we see God taking the actual step of creating man and
woman. We need to appreciate how God not only could have the idea, but the power to follow through on this idea. God is the creator, and we are the creation. In the likeness and the image of God we were created. God wanted to make us like Him, with the abilities of being loving, and giving, and thinking, and speaking, and reasoning, and creative, and with a spirit to connect with God’s Spirit. And we can’t forget that God not only loved us enough to create us, but God loved us enough to send His son to die for us and redeem us from our sin!
b. God saw…and it was very good- God thought of the idea to make us
special; to make us like Himself, and then took the initiative to make it happen. After it happened, God looked at His creation and saw that it was very good. As a father, I remember seeing my children after they were born, and there was this incredible feeling of how wonderful they were. I remember thinking: ‘THIS IS GOOD.’ They looked perfect to me in every way!
You know, one of the great issues that people struggle with in our society is self-image. That is why words can hurt so deeply, because people are already having thoughts of inadequacy, so it doesn’t take much for someone to say something that will push them deeper into this hole.
The God who created this whole universe, the all-powerful God, created you and me, and when He sees what He created, He says, “HE/SHE IS VERY GOOD!” One of my favorite Bible verses comes from Psalm 139:13-14, “For it was You, O God, who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb, I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works.”
Isn’t this a wonderful picture of how special we are?! These are indeed words of encouragement. Whether you have a father who loves you and is there for you, or you don’t have a father who is present in your life, we all have a heavenly Father who loves us and is there for us. We also have a heavenly Father who gives us a great example of how we are to love our children, and praise our children.
III. Do the Works I Do- (John 14:12)
a. Fulfilling our potential- Rudyard Kipling once said: “Gardens are not
made by singing, ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.” The implication here is that to grow a garden you must put effort and work into it. Actually, you need to put the right kind of work and care into it. There are many who work hard and can still kill a garden. For us to be fully ‘in the image’ of God we need to live out what God teaches us. We also need people in our lives who help us to see what it looks like to ‘be in the image of God!’ This is what makes life special; this is what makes life worthwhile; this is what really motivates us to get the most out of our lives.
Jesus said in the gospel of John 14:12, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” Like the young baseball player, who fulfilled his potential because of what the umpire said to him about being like his father, we too fulfill our potential when we remember that we are made in the image of the Father, God. In seeking to be like Him, thinking about our arms being His arms, and our hands being His hands, and our mouths being His mouth, we can do even great works than Jesus!
Do you believe this?
b. Doing great works- To believe it we have to understand it. So let’s
take our last few moments to try and understand it. What does Jesus mean that we can do greater works than He did? I mean, Jesus did some amazing things. As we talked about last week, He walked on water; He fed 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish; He raised a young man from the dead. And so much more!
First, Jesus healed people. Just as Jesus healed people, so too we are called to
heal people. Now, as soon as I say this, I’m sure your quick response would be: ‘I could never do that!’ And that is true, you could never do that on your own. But if God wanted you to heal someone, with God’s help, and God’s power, You could heal someone. Remember, as we talked about last week, because Jesus left this earth, He gave us the Spirit of God to be with us; to be IN us. With God’s Spirit in us, we have the power of God available to us, and we can do what God calls us to do.
Second, as Jesus preached the Good News of God’s love. We too are called to share this Good News. We have the ability to tell people about Jesus Christ. To tell them that Jesus was not just some person that lived a long time ago, but that Jesus was God in the flesh, and how He came to this earth, and died for our sins, and through faith in Jesus our sins are forgiven and wiped clean. We can tell someone about this Good News so that they can be saved. In truth, there is nothing more powerful than a life that is saved. With our technology we can get this message to the world!
Third, Jesus tells us that when we pray, God will hear our prayers and answer our prayers. We are called to pray in the will of God, and when we do this, our prayers will be powerful. In this way we can be like Jesus, knowing God’s will through prayer, and doing God’s will by prayer.
Fourth, Jesus showed us who God is by the way he lived His life. We too can live in a way that shows others who God is. In this way we can show how we are created in the image of God. Through us, the world can catch a glimpse of God!
Conclusion: There is an old Chinese proverb which says: “If your vision is for a year, plant wheat. If your vision is for ten years, plant trees. If your vision is for a lifetime, plant people.”
Too often we are short sighted, not allowing ourselves to see the big picture. We fail to understand our lives in the broad scheme, but instead get too caught up in the immediate future, maybe not even looking past today. The truth is, God’s vision is for eternity, and that is why God created people. When we let ourselves get down and discouraged, it is because we have forgotten that we have been created in the image of God, for His good purposes, and that it will take a liftetime to live out.
I hope that you have a good family structure, and that this Father’s Day is one that brings good thoughts and memories. I hope you have (or if your father is dead, had) a father who loves you. If you do, treasure who your father is. If you don’t, let this Father’s Day be a day you give yourself to God all the more and thank Him for creating you, and loving you. Don’t forget, you were created in His image. Amen.
Genesis 1:26-31
Sunday, June 19, 2011 (Father’s Day)
Introduction: “Encouraging Words,” by Barbara Johnson
“Someone said that encouragement is simply reminding a person of the "shoulders" he's standing on; the heritage he's been given. That's what happened when a young man, the son of a star baseball player, was drafted by one of the minor league teams. As hard as he tried, his first season was disappointing, and by midseason he expected to be released any day.The coaches were bewildered by his failure because he possessed all the characteristics of a superb athlete, but he couldn't seem to incorporate those advantages into a coordinated effort. He seemed to have become disconnected from his potential. His future seemed darkest one day when he had already struck out his first time at bat. Then he stepped up to the batter's box again and quickly ran up two strikes. The catcher called a time-out and trotted to the pitcher's mound for a conference. While they were busy the umpire, standing behind the plate, spoke casually to this young man. Then play resumed, the next pitch was thrown - and the young man hit a home run.
That was the turning point. From then on, he played the game with a new confidence that quickly drew the attention of the major league team. Soon after he was called up to the majors. On the day he was leaving, one of his coaches asked him what had caused such a turnaround. The young man replied that it was the encouraging remark the umpire had made to him. The young man said: "He told me I reminded him of all the times he had stood behind my dad in the batter's box. He said I was holding the bat just the way Dad had held it. And he told me, 'I can see his genes in you; you have your father's arms.' After that, whenever I swung the bat, I just imagined I was using Dad's arms instead of my own."
This morning we will look at the importance of giving encouraging words; the importance of how we are created in God’s image, and understanding what this means for our lives.
I. Words are Powerful- (Ephesians 4:29; 6:4)
a. Longing to be accepted- The truth is, we all long to be accepted by
others. First and foremost, whether we admit it or not, we want to be accepted by our parents and our family. Too many people live in a family that struggles to be encouraging to one another. While we don’t have a negative environment in our house, I see how it is all too easy for my kids to say mean things to each other. And that is true in most families, where too many people live in an environment where there is negativity, and putdowns. When we miss out on our parent’s approval, it can have a tremendous negative impact on our lives.
I’m sure many of you could stand up right now and give story after story of the struggles you have had to find acceptance and approval. Even when we are older, and have moved away from our families, we still desire this acceptance. In fact, I have had many counseling sessions where people are struggling with their self-esteem because they did not get this approval from their father, or mother when they were young. It forever nags at them.
We need to understand that words are powerful! You have heard the old adage: ‘Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words can never hurt you.’ But this is not true. Words can hurt us a lot, and can affect a person deeply. Words can cause deep pain and scars.
At one particular Weight Watchers meeting, the people were talking
about what to do when people said something negative or mean to them. For
example, if someone said: ‘I can’t believe you ate that whole thing!’ The
responses could be: ‘Well, I just got a double dose of nutrition.’ OR
‘I believe in finishing what you started.’ OR ‘My parents didn’t raise
a quitter.’ OR ‘Now I have more room in the fridge now for healthy foods.’
(Amusing Grace, p. 366; #1251)
Now this is a humorous way to try and put aside words that are actually hurtful. But the better way for us, is to be a people that seeks to not be hurtful with our words.
b. Words that build up- In the book of Ephesians, chapter 4, Paul is
trying to help people understand what it means to live in unity; what it means to live a new life in Christ, and what the rules are for this new life we have in Christ. In verse 29, Paul states the importance of our words, when he says: “Let no unwholesome words proceed from your mouth, but only that which is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.”
The apostle Paul is telling us that we should shun all bad language, especially that which is hurtful to others. We should speak words that are encouraging and helpful and that build up. All other words are worthless. We should figure out what the need is, and come up with those words that will give grace. Now, this doesn’t mean that we can’t challenge others, or seek to keep others accountable, or confront others when they have done us wrong. But it is to be done with love, and with words that bring grace, and words that are meant to help and build the person up so that they might live a better life.
As today is Father’s Day, it is important to realize that in our society, one of the great challenges, is that there are too fathers who are either not in their children’s lives, or who provoke their children. The call of a father is to teach, and love, and encourage, and build up. Why are so many fathers not doing this? Why do we allow this as a society?
Ephesians 6:4 says: “And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
So the challenge to us fathers here today is to bring up our children with words of instruction; instruction from the Lord. And all of us can help to do this, in that the kids who don’t have fathers need extra love and instruction. Too many fathers in our world don’t follow the Lord, so they aren’t following the pattern of what it means to be a father; they aren’t teaching their children with the instruction of the Lord! As a church, we need to make sure all children who come to our church have this love, and encouragement, and instruction!
It would be nice to live in a world where all fathers were present and loving and teaching their children about the Lord. It would be nice to live in a world where fathers were a positive influence and a good example to their children. But this is not the case. So what are we to do?
II. Created in His Image- (Genesis 1:28-31; Psalm 139:13-14)
a. In His Image- The first and most important step is to understand who
we are. We are children of God, created by God, created in the image of God. Let’s read it again; Genesis 1:26- “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness;… So God created humankind in His image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them. God saw everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good.”
Let us look briefly at several important aspects mentioned here…
1. God said- First of all we see that it was God who had the idea to create
us; GOD SAID. This idea was an idea for relationship; a relationship that is personal. It is to be a relationship that is more special than the relationship God has with the other parts of creation, because through this idea of creating man and woman, God was forming creatures that could relate to Him, and someone who could be His image in the world.
2. Let us make- Secondly, there is the idea of making. God says, “Let us
make.” When you make something, it takes thought, and energy, and care. God personally was going to make humankind; it was His doing. It was not a haphazard event, but was something that was well planned out. We were to be made with purpose and direction. We were to be made with a call (‘to be fruitful and multiply’ and ‘to govern the world and all that is in it.’) And we were given the promise of God’s provision; God would provide for us all that we need.
3. God created- Last, we see God taking the actual step of creating man and
woman. We need to appreciate how God not only could have the idea, but the power to follow through on this idea. God is the creator, and we are the creation. In the likeness and the image of God we were created. God wanted to make us like Him, with the abilities of being loving, and giving, and thinking, and speaking, and reasoning, and creative, and with a spirit to connect with God’s Spirit. And we can’t forget that God not only loved us enough to create us, but God loved us enough to send His son to die for us and redeem us from our sin!
b. God saw…and it was very good- God thought of the idea to make us
special; to make us like Himself, and then took the initiative to make it happen. After it happened, God looked at His creation and saw that it was very good. As a father, I remember seeing my children after they were born, and there was this incredible feeling of how wonderful they were. I remember thinking: ‘THIS IS GOOD.’ They looked perfect to me in every way!
You know, one of the great issues that people struggle with in our society is self-image. That is why words can hurt so deeply, because people are already having thoughts of inadequacy, so it doesn’t take much for someone to say something that will push them deeper into this hole.
The God who created this whole universe, the all-powerful God, created you and me, and when He sees what He created, He says, “HE/SHE IS VERY GOOD!” One of my favorite Bible verses comes from Psalm 139:13-14, “For it was You, O God, who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb, I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works.”
Isn’t this a wonderful picture of how special we are?! These are indeed words of encouragement. Whether you have a father who loves you and is there for you, or you don’t have a father who is present in your life, we all have a heavenly Father who loves us and is there for us. We also have a heavenly Father who gives us a great example of how we are to love our children, and praise our children.
III. Do the Works I Do- (John 14:12)
a. Fulfilling our potential- Rudyard Kipling once said: “Gardens are not
made by singing, ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.” The implication here is that to grow a garden you must put effort and work into it. Actually, you need to put the right kind of work and care into it. There are many who work hard and can still kill a garden. For us to be fully ‘in the image’ of God we need to live out what God teaches us. We also need people in our lives who help us to see what it looks like to ‘be in the image of God!’ This is what makes life special; this is what makes life worthwhile; this is what really motivates us to get the most out of our lives.
Jesus said in the gospel of John 14:12, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” Like the young baseball player, who fulfilled his potential because of what the umpire said to him about being like his father, we too fulfill our potential when we remember that we are made in the image of the Father, God. In seeking to be like Him, thinking about our arms being His arms, and our hands being His hands, and our mouths being His mouth, we can do even great works than Jesus!
Do you believe this?
b. Doing great works- To believe it we have to understand it. So let’s
take our last few moments to try and understand it. What does Jesus mean that we can do greater works than He did? I mean, Jesus did some amazing things. As we talked about last week, He walked on water; He fed 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish; He raised a young man from the dead. And so much more!
First, Jesus healed people. Just as Jesus healed people, so too we are called to
heal people. Now, as soon as I say this, I’m sure your quick response would be: ‘I could never do that!’ And that is true, you could never do that on your own. But if God wanted you to heal someone, with God’s help, and God’s power, You could heal someone. Remember, as we talked about last week, because Jesus left this earth, He gave us the Spirit of God to be with us; to be IN us. With God’s Spirit in us, we have the power of God available to us, and we can do what God calls us to do.
Second, as Jesus preached the Good News of God’s love. We too are called to share this Good News. We have the ability to tell people about Jesus Christ. To tell them that Jesus was not just some person that lived a long time ago, but that Jesus was God in the flesh, and how He came to this earth, and died for our sins, and through faith in Jesus our sins are forgiven and wiped clean. We can tell someone about this Good News so that they can be saved. In truth, there is nothing more powerful than a life that is saved. With our technology we can get this message to the world!
Third, Jesus tells us that when we pray, God will hear our prayers and answer our prayers. We are called to pray in the will of God, and when we do this, our prayers will be powerful. In this way we can be like Jesus, knowing God’s will through prayer, and doing God’s will by prayer.
Fourth, Jesus showed us who God is by the way he lived His life. We too can live in a way that shows others who God is. In this way we can show how we are created in the image of God. Through us, the world can catch a glimpse of God!
Conclusion: There is an old Chinese proverb which says: “If your vision is for a year, plant wheat. If your vision is for ten years, plant trees. If your vision is for a lifetime, plant people.”
Too often we are short sighted, not allowing ourselves to see the big picture. We fail to understand our lives in the broad scheme, but instead get too caught up in the immediate future, maybe not even looking past today. The truth is, God’s vision is for eternity, and that is why God created people. When we let ourselves get down and discouraged, it is because we have forgotten that we have been created in the image of God, for His good purposes, and that it will take a liftetime to live out.
I hope that you have a good family structure, and that this Father’s Day is one that brings good thoughts and memories. I hope you have (or if your father is dead, had) a father who loves you. If you do, treasure who your father is. If you don’t, let this Father’s Day be a day you give yourself to God all the more and thank Him for creating you, and loving you. Don’t forget, you were created in His image. Amen.
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