Bring an apple - cut it open
How many seeds in an apple - easy to count - how many apples in a seed?
God only knows!
That’s what I love about babies - no one but God knows their potential.
So we had better work hard at showing them God.
More than 40 yr.. ago a Philadelphia congregation watched as three 9 yr. old boys were baptized and joined the church. As their membership dwindled, they sold the building and disbanded. One of those three boys was Tony. Years later, Tony decided to look up the church report for the year of his baptism. There is the name Dick White, he is now a missionary, and Burt Newman, now a professor of theology in an African seminary. Tony read the church report for that year. "It has not been a good year for the church. We lost 27 members 3 joined but they were only children. Tony’s last name was Campolo.
1st Creation Story
GE 1:26-28 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."
1:26 Let US make people IN OUR IMAGE to be like us
Be masters over all life - God shared His leadership with us.
Made in God’s image means
1. That we are incredibly complex
Fine Print of a Legal Document has nothing on us. A single human chromosome contains Twenty billion bits of information , the equivalent of about 3 billion letters, or about 2 million pages, which would fill about 4,000 textbooks. If all the DNA molecules in one cell were unwrapped and stretched out end-to-end, the total length would be about six feet. Almost every cell in your body contains six feet of DNA, wrapped up into a very compact space.
2. That we are able to please Him
Creation declared good 1:27 Patterned after Himself (male and female)
Woman meets Man, thinks he is divine, she marries him.
3. That we are created to resemble - to look like Him
What does God look like? Girl drawing God - "They will now"
For centuries people were mistaken in what God looked like. Afraid of Him rather than in awe of Him. So God sent Jesus who was
Ro 5:14 - Yet, death ruled from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin in the same way Adam did when he disobeyed. Adam is an image of the one who would come. Ro 8:28-29 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God--those whom he has called according to his plan. This is true because he already knew his people and had already appointed them to have the same form as the image of his Son. Therefore, his Son is the firstborn among many children. 1Co 13:12 - Now we see a blurred image in a mirror. Then we will see very clearly. Now my knowledge is incomplete. Then I will have complete knowledge as God has complete knowledge of me. 2Co 3:18 - As all of us reflect the Lord’s glory with faces that are not covered with veils, we are being changed into his image with ever-increasing glory. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. Col 1:15 - He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
Image = Mirror, we are made in the mirror image of God and God is looking to see Himself in us. What distorts God’s image in us? How
Anyone can marvel looking at a newborn - its a bit more of a challenge 16 years later.
Why? Images get distorted
To get back to where we belong - we need to look more closely at God - not just ourselves
Spotting counterfeits - hold the real thing - Worship does that
1:28 Multiply and fill the earth - Subdue it - not destroy it. First Command
Reproduce and multiply was the original command, so sex not the sin
Shame later came not at the nakedness of flesh but of shame of disobedience & broken relationship
God created man and woman and pronounced them good. Naked was good, but if I take my clothes off there might be a lot fewer people in this church
2nd Creation Story
Gen. 2:4-22. This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens-- 5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground-- 7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground--trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ... 15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
2:7 man from the dust - show the Creation Slide - Dust + Breath = Walking
2:8 God planted 2:15 God placed man to tend the earth - tend the earth - take after God
