Jesus is the Example | Genesis 1:26-27
Read Genesis 1:26-27
God is now on His final day of creation,
“Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind,’ and it was so. God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.”
--Genesis 1:24-25
But God is not done…God has not yet made His prized creation, the climax of the historical creation story in Genesis 1 builds up and culminates into the most significant piece of creation—God creates Humanity.
The Point: Men and Women are created by God. Humanity is made in the image of God, Jesus is God and is the perfect example for humanity.
- God creates Humanity on the final day and humanity is made in the image of Christ Himself.
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” – Gen. 1:26a
God is talking to Himself, to the distinct person of Jesus and the Holy Spirit and proclaiming to make humanity in His own image, in the visible form of the invisible form of God, Jesus Christ.
“For He [Jesus] rescued us form the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” -- Colossians 1:13-15
Jesus is the visible image of God who is invisible. Adam and Eve are made in Christ’s image—Christ is the perfect example for humanity. Jesus isn’t a copy of humanity rather humanity is a copy of Jesus.
“The image of God in humanity pertains to the capacity for spiritual relationship. Just as God has the capacity for relationship, so humanity, male and female, have been made to reflect that image and enter into a relationship with their creator.” –The Moody Bible Commentary
Adam and Eve, humanity itself, is made with a unique and intrinsic value that the rest of creation does not possess. God made humans to be His prized possession, His main form of relationship and community. Humans possess a distinct nature and soul that is apart from the animalistic / natural world.
“…and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky an over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” – Gen. 1:26b
God is continuing to establish His perfect, righteous order as He is creating the world. In God’s order, He gives His creation to Adam and Eve as a gift, to a man and a woman. God has established an order of hierarchy within His beautiful and perfect creation—Nature will serve humanity, and humanity will serve their creator, God. This is God’s perfect order.
We must serve as the Son of Man has served—we must follow the example of Jesus Christ.
- God made humanity in a specific order, He made man, then He made woman, Adam and Eve compliment one another in God’s perfect creation.
“God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” --Genesis 1:27
We must remember that while God was creating the world in Genesis 1, Sin has not yet entered this picture, this is God’s perfect creation before it was tainted by the chaos of sin. We now live in a sinful world and our modern society has been redefining gender and separating sex from gender to say that gender is a spectrum, it is no longer binary, it is no longer male and female. This is a direct violation of God’s word and order of creation.
--Margaret Mead, Coming of Age in Samoa, 1928, “Mead described many variations in men’s and women’s tasks and sexual roles in her best-selling studies, opening one way for scholars to reappraise the seemingly fixed behaviors of men and women to see stereotypes as contingent rather than determined by nature—this fed the feminism and gender movement of the 1950s and 1960s.” – Encyclopeida.com
-Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1949, “In her view women, in contrast to men, acted in accordance with men’s view of them and not according to their own lights…By this view, femininity as most women lived was an inauthentic identity determined not inevitably, as a natural condition, but as the result of a misguided choice.
From 2018-2023 there were 4,071 (536 visits in 2018-2019, 985 visits in 2022-2023) hospital visits including day visits and surgeries involving gender affirming mastectomies reported since 2018, 602 involved youth 18 and under of those, 303 involved teens were 17 and younger. The youngest age was 14. –National Post
Our modern society is at war with God’s word. It directly opposes God’s perfect design which we find in Genesis 1:26-27. This shouldn’t surprise us because the world is tainted by sin through Adam and Eve’s disobedience of God’s law in Genesis 3.
What should the Christian do about this? Remember, Jesus is the example.
-Jesus spoke the truth –Matt. 19:3-4
-Jesus taught to pray for our enemies --Matt. 5:43-46
-We must share the good news of Jesus to the world --Mark 10:43-45
“ He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.” --Hebrews 5:7-10
Jesus is our high priest, the fulfillment of God’s promise to this broken world, even when humanity broke God’s perfect order God had an answer to our sin. Jesus is the source of our salvation.
“There is much dialoguing in this world. Too much dialoguing. Christian, don’t go into the world to dialogue, but go into the world and preach the gospel of Jesus.” -- Rev. Lon Solomon
Questions:
- Do you have people in your life that need to hear the gospel of Jesus?
- What did you learn about God today?
- What surprised you about today’s sermon?