Sermon Central
-
Man, The Created Series
Contributed by Jeff Strite on Mar 30, 2014 (message contributor)
Summary: God said He created man in His image. But what do we do if we've damaged and warped that image? How can we ever repair and regain what was lost?
OPEN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3IRZPjdpr0
(Video “Imago Dei” on youtube.com - play it through the 1:00 minute mark then fade out)
Psalm 8:3-4 asks an intriguing question:
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”
What is man?
According to evolution, man (or Humans) are the end product of chance collision of molecules. Mankind came into existence purely because of a mindless and unplanned accident of nature.
Someone has referred to this kind of thinking as being
“From Goo To You by Way of the Zoo”
According to this kind of thinking you and I are not that much different that birds in the sky or fish in the sea, or the slug in the mud, or an amoeba in the waters. We’re all pretty much the result of the same purposeless interaction of atoms.
Thus we really have no intrinsic value. No value to really speak of that sets us apart from the rest of the world.
And there may be times we might agree with that evaluation.
There are times we don’t think we’re worth very much.
Times we think that we’ve messed up so badly that no one could want us around.
Times when we wonder if anybody would even miss us if we were gone.
Sometimes we may even wonder if it matters that we even exist.
But the Bible doesn’t agree with that.
The Bible teaches that you that you are NOT an accident
YOU were planned.
YOU have purpose
And YOU have value all because God says YOU do.
ILLUS: I once saw a poster with a cute little boy on it. And it had these words
“I know I’m special, ‘cause God don’t make no junk!” (show poster on screen)
And Psalm 8 agrees.
It not only asks the question: “what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? BUT it answers that question:
“You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.” Psalm 8:4-8
Allen Webster interprets this passage this way:
“Evolution sees man as one step above apes.
Scripture sees him as one step beneath angels”
That’s how important you are!
And that is the primary message from Genesis chapters 1 and 2.
God makes it very clear that everything in creation was made for US
In Genesis 1:26 - God says, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
And you can see how important it was to God by the way Genesis tells us God felt about creation.
On the first day God said “Let there be light!” and there was light. And the Bible says “and it was GOOD.”
The 2nd day God created the earth’s atmosphere and then we’re told “and it was GOOD.”
On day 3 God created vegetation – the trees and the grass and the shrubs and again it says “and that was GOOD.”
Then on the 4th day God created the Sun, Moon and the stars and said “that was GOOD”
On the 5th day God created the birds of the air and fish of the sea and He saw that “that was GOOD.”
But then – on the 6th day - God created man.
And when God had created man we’re told “it was VERY GOOD.”
But it doesn’t stop there.
Reading Genesis 1 is like looking through a telescope at Creation.
That first chapter tells about each day of creation, but there’s very little detail telling us how God did what He did. It’s kind of like an overview.
Then chapter 2 kicks in and it’s like looking thru a microscope. God takes us back to the 6th day of creation and He goes into great detail telling us HOW He did it.
ILLUS: Before I went to Bible College I attended a secular University for a couple of years. Some of the classes I took there were “philosophy” classes, and for the most part many of their instructors were not Godly men. They hated Scripture because it got in the way of the teachings they wanted to place in the minds of their students. So they made it their goal to undermine the Bible wherever possible, and one of the ways they’d do was by trying to expose “contradictions” in the Bible.
