Genesis 1:1, 26-28 - People matter to God
By James Galbraith
First Baptist Church, Port Alberni
October 18, 2009
Text
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
26 Then God said, “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.”
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Anthropic Principle - that the world around us was somehow designed to support and nourish human life
- raise or lower the universe’s rate of expansion by even one part in a million, and life would be impossible
- if the average distance between stars were any greater, planets like earth would not have been formed;
any smaller, and the planetary orbits necessary for life would not have occurred
- if the ratio of carbon to oxygen had been slightly different than it is, none of us would have been here to breathe the air
- Change the tilt of the earth’s axis slightly in one direction, and we would freeze - change it the other direction and we would burn up
- if the earth were any closer to the sun, or any farther away, if it were any bigger or smaller, if it rotated faster or slower - any of the above would render the earth uninhabitable.
POINT - SOMEONE must have gone to a lot of effort to make things just right so that we could enjoy life.
People matter to God.
Now, add to the general sense of creation the marvelous details that went into making us - when we read Gen. 1:26-28 we see that God made us in his own image
That means we reflect God somehow - when you look at someone, anyone, you see an idea of who and what God is.
A desire to love and be loved, an ability to create, the gifts of imagination and so much more.
We reflect that image poorly - it’s been tarnished and battered by sin, but that does not alter the fact that each and every person you and I come into contact with bears the image of God upon them.
People matter to God.
Psalm 139: 13-16
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
Now only did people matter to God in the beginning - they still do!
These words come from King David of Israel, and they were written long after the words we looked at from Genesis.
David is worshipping God, thankful for God’s attention to David’s life - he’s acknowledging that God was there right from his conception,
and will remain with him until death and beyond.
David mattered to God - and he knew it.
And these words are inclusive - meaning that they apply to us all -
God is with us, all of us,
from conception to cremation, and we matter to him.
People matter to God.
John 3:16 -“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
It is the first Bible verse many people learn, and God help us if we become calloused to the immensity of the message it contains.
It speaks God caring for the world - the people – so much that he gave up the only thing he couldn’t recreate - his own Son,
for the sake of a race that couldn’t face up to the consequences
of it’s collective and individual evil.
Martin Luther called John 3:16 “the heart of the Bible—the Gospel in miniature.”
It’s so simple a child can understand it; yet it condenses the deep and marvelous truths of redemption into these few poignant words:
“God”...The greatest Lover
“So loved”...The greatest degree
“The world”...The greatest number
“That He gave” …The greatest act
“His only Son” …The greatest gift
“That whoever”…The greatest invitation
“Believes”...The greatest simplicity
“In Him”...The greatest Person
“Should not perish”…The greatest deliverance
“But”....The greatest difference
“Have”....The greatest certainty
“Everlasting Life”…The greatest possession
I read out all of these “greatest’s” with one motive in mind today
- to demonstrate just how much people matter to God.
Would anyone disagree that people matter to God? I don’t think so.
Reactions to “People matter to God”
“tell me something I don’t know”
“well, no kidding”
“so what?”
“that’s nice, but I want/need/wish/like/
“zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”
We know this but do not own it.
What we do with these four words affects every other aspect of our lives as Christians and as a church.
People matter to God = we are important to God
- to see ourselves as worthless or unimportant is to not see the image of God within us.
People matter to God = those in our lives are important to God
- not just the relatives and the ones we like,
but all the people in our lives!
Bill Hybels, a pastor in Chicago, said,
“You’ve never locked eyes with anyone who does not matter to God”
People matter to God = they should matter to us!
I’m sure we would all say they do,
and we could probably come up with a long list of people that do.
But the true test of these words is to look into our lives,
see how our time and resources are allocated,
how much goes to our own satisfaction,
and how much goes to others.
If as people we want to live as though people matter to God…
If as a church we want to show that people matter to God…
If I could finish knowing one thing this morning,
it would be that we would leave this place thinking, knowing and living as if we truly understand and believe that people matter to God.
Will we look at the grocery clerk taking too long to run our items through the line and think, “this person matters to God”
How about…
- drug dealer on the news
- boss putting us under pressure to perform
- supervisor who just laid us off
- homeless person who panhandled us
- neighbour who’s mowing his grass
These people matter to God.
May we be the ones who show them this truth in way we treat them.
