I'm glad to be with you this morning and we're going to be looking at the Word of God together from Genesis chapter 1. If you have a Bible or if you want to pick up one in the pew in front of you, we can read that together now. We're going to read from Genesis chapter 1 and beginning in verse 26. You're now the Word of God. Then God said, let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, in the birds of the air over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. And God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth, 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. Then God said, I give you every seed bearing plant on the face of the whole earth, and every tree that has fruit with seed in it, they will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth, and all the birds of the air, and all the creatures that move on the ground, everything that has the breath of life in it, I give every green plant for food. And it was so. God saw all he had made, and it was very good, and it was an evening, and there was a morning, the sixth day. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we pause having heard these words that were written thousands of years ago. We pause and turn to you. We call no one in this world our teacher, but you. Because we hope and no one like we hope in you. We trust no one like we trust in you. And so we pray now that you will send Holy Spirit to us, that he will come, and fill each heart in this room that we may see with eyes that are new, and here with unstopped ears, and so that our hearts will be softened to your word. And as you do this, we will honor you for it. We will thank you. Amen. If you knew this was the mission's emphasis Sunday of this church, then you were a brave person to come. Because you know what I'm going to talk about. I'm going to talk about this thing that Christians call the mission. And you also know that at the end of the sermon, what I'm going to say to you is very predictable. And that is everybody who's a follower of Jesus is on a mission, and so you ought to devote yourself to that mission by your prayers, and by your actions, and even by your money. So now we can go home, right? You knew that's what I was going to say if you knew this was mission week. But sometimes, as great as it is to have an emphasis on the mission, on a particular Sunday each year, and to think about it, and to sort of concentrate our attention on it, sometimes those special weeks give us a false impression. And the false impression is that this thing we call the mission is something that you get around to once in a while. Rather than something that you do all the time. When I was about eight years old, I had what I would call an hour privilege. I didn't consider to privilege then. But I had the opportunity while my father was on strike at the railroad to help him add a room to our house. I mean, we've spent the whole summer day and night working on adding a room to the house, and we worked day and night on this thing. And every morning, my mother would come out on her way to work, and all she would ever say in the morning was this. She would say, all I care is that this room doesn't look like it was added to the house. So we worked hard to try to keep it from looking like it was added to the house. And then every night when she'd come home, of course, we wanted to show her everything we had done, but she would just stop us and say, I don't care. All I care is that this room doesn't look like it was added to the house. So we made sure that the brick work lined up right. We made sure the windows matched that the pitch of the roof was right. We made sure it did not look like it was added to the house. But I can guarantee you this. If you went by my parents' house in Roanoke, Virginia today, and you stopped in front of that house, it would take you about three seconds before you would realize that room was added to the house. And see, unless you're a master architect and a master builder, when you add a room to a house, it looks like it was added to the house. And in many ways, that's the way it is when it comes to this thing called the mission. For many followers of Jesus who are very sincere in their faith, they think of the mission as something they'll get around to, something they'll add to their lives once they get everything else straightened out. In fact, local churches are often that way. And you can tell because anytime a local church has a problem with the budget, what's the first thing they cut off? What's the most non-essential thing? It's always the mission. And you know how it is even in your own family and your own personal life. If you have your mortgage lined up, if you have your kids in the right school, if things are going well in your family, and all your finances are right and your time is working out just like you wanted to, then maybe you'll consider doing something for the mission of the church. It's almost as if we think of this thing called the mission as something that we attach to our lives rather than being the original floor plan of our lives. Well, if the mission has been added to your life, it's going to look like it was added to your life. It's not going to be very important. It's not going to be very compelling. It's not going to be something that's seeped down inside of your heart. But I have good news for you. When the Bible talks about the mission, it doesn't talk about it like it was an added-on room. It's not something added to the Christian life. It's a part of the original floor plan of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And not just even a follower of Jesus. The Christian mission is a part of the original floor plan of what it means to be a human being. Can you imagine such a thing as that? Because from the very beginning, from the very beginning, the one who made all things, made humanity and said, I've got a mission for you, and here it is. A lot of times, Christians will think that the mission of Jesus began at the end of his life when he gave that thing we call the Great Commission. Go there for and teach all nations. You've heard that one before. And if that's what you think, that's okay, except remember that's at the end of Jesus' life, so you can still treat it sort of like an appendix, an add-on. Oh yeah, and by the way, go there for and teach all nations. Oh, some of us know the Bible a little better. We're always interested in saying, no, no, no, no, no, the mission of the Christian church began with Father Abraham. The patriarch of Israel, when God said that he would bless all the nations through Abraham and his family, that's the beginning, but even that's too late in the Bible for where the mission began. Jehovah's Witnesses, they'll tell you that the mission began with Abel who was God's first witness to came, but even that's too late. In reality, the Bible says that the mission that every single person in this room has been set on began at the very beginning. Sin has complicated things, defeat and rebellion and horrors of life in this world have complicated the mission, but it did not begin the mission. The mission began with the original floor plan of what it means to be you. Now we just read a part of the story of creation in Genesis, the part that had to do with you and me, the part that had to do with humanity. And what we're going to do is we're going to look at this part of the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis, and we're going to discover that the mission that we have as Christian people, as followers of Jesus, actually began here. And it starts this way with what God called you and me. Do you remember what it says there? Look again at verse 27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created him. And as it says in verse 26, let us make man in our image. Now if you've been around the Christian faith at all, then you know that Christians talk about people being the image and the likeness of God. I mean it's one of those religious things we say. Usually we don't have a clue what it means, but we know we're supposed to say it. So I'll go, yeah, yeah. What are people? Oh, they're the image of God. Yeah, great. Okay, good. Whatever that means. Well, to understand what it means, you have to get in a time machine with me. So let's get in this time machine and go back. Let's go way back. I mean, all the way back to the days of pyramids and ziggarrots and ancient empires. You know, the days of Charlton Heston and Yulbrenner, those days. Well, in Charlton Heston and Yulbrenner's day and the days of Moses in other words, you might be surprised to know that Israel was not the only people who used the expression image of God. It was a phrase that was used in most cultures around Israel. They used it in Egypt. They used it over in Babylon. They used it up in Assyria. They used it even in the land of Canaan. They spoke of the image of God, the likeness of the gods, the son of the gods, and these words all meant the same. But in those cultures, the expression image of God really was attached to only one person in all of human society. Only one person could be called the image and the likeness of God. Can you imagine who that was? Yeah, it was Yulbrenner. It was the Pharaoh. It was the emperor. It was the king. The king is the image and likeness of God. He's the son of the gods, nobody else. You see, that's the way you control people. It's the way you make them their slaves and things like that. It's by telling them they're less than you are because you're the great king. You're the son of God. You are the image and the likeness of God. Now, the reason they called kings this is really very simple, because they thought that kings had a very special role in the world. And this role, we could put it just like this. The role of a king in the ancient world was to learn what the gods up in heaven wanted and make it happen on this planet. That was their job. Learn what God up in heaven wanted and make it happen down here on this planet. And this was a job, as far as most ancient people were concerned, really was given only to the great king. And so now we can hear just how radical Moses was in his day. Because in this passage, Moses says to Israel, it's a lie. It's not just that the king has the role of learning God's will and making it happen on the planet. No, no. The fact is, is that all human beings are the image and the likeness of God. Every single person has the value and the dignity and the importance of the greatest king that has ever walked on this planet. That's you. That's me. Every single one of us was made in the image and the likeness of God and given the role on this planet of learning what God wants to happen and making it happen down here where we live. And can't you imagine Moses writing this book and talking about it to people of Israel in his day, these former slaves, people who had been enslaved for hundreds of years in Egypt, can't you imagine how hard it would have been for them to believe that? To believe that. Me? I'm as important as the Pharaoh. Me? My life matters? Me? My choices matter? Yes, it would have been very difficult for them to believe. Just like it is for you and me. It's hard for us to believe too. Now, I know in a group like this, we've got somebody in this room who thinks too much of themselves. Do you know who that is in this room? Yeah, there's somebody like that here who thinks, you know, I'm all that. You're not all that. But now, let me talk to the rest of you. Most of us, when we look around ourselves today, drive down the street, you look at all those millions and millions and millions of people that surround you, it's hard for you to believe that you have any significance at all. I mean, are your grandchildren even going to know your first name? Are your great grandchildren even going to know where you're buried? When you think about things like that, you sort of go, I wonder if I really am important. I wonder if my life matters? I wonder if my choices really matter at all. I know it's hard for you to believe that because you and I think a lot like those ancient Israelites thought. Let me put it to you this way. You know, next week is election week, so let's just put it this way. I bet I can say one thing, one political statement that everybody in this room will agree with. I don't care what party you are and who you're going to vote for next week. I'm sure everyone in this room will agree with what I'm about to say. The president of the United States is an important man. Of course we agree with that. And why? Because if the president of the United States says returning this way, it's going to turn the whole course of history that way. And if the president of the United States says we're going this way, it's going to turn the whole course of the human race in that direction. So he's a very important man. So you know, you never want the president and the first wife to have an argument. Can you imagine at the end of an argument what he might do? Oh yeah, you don't like that. Well, just watch what happens when I hit this red button. And he hits the red button and the whole world blows up. Yeah, we don't want him to have a fight with his wife. We don't want him to have the flu. Don't want him to have a sinus infection. Why? Because his choices are important. His choices shake the history of humanity. But think about you. I'm sure there's somebody in this room right now that has a sinus infection. We don't care. I'm sure somebody's going to get the flu this week. So what? Even if you can find a red button to push in your house, if you push it, nothing's going to happen. So what's that tell you? You're not important. And what does that tell you? You can waste your life away. And it won't make one bit of difference. What am I going to do as one in a billion? I'm going to live my little life here. I'm going to have as much fun as I possibly can. Try to stay out of trouble. I'm going to spend my whole life and waste it all away because my choices just don't matter. And that's exactly what the Israelites and Moses they believed about themselves. And it's exactly why he's telling them in this passage. It's not true. You're the image and you're the likeness of God. And you know, you know that it's true that your choices matter. I mean, you've all heard the stories about the grandmother who does nothing but raise her orphaned grandson to become a Christian. Who does nothing but become a shoe salesman? Who does nothing except one day share his Christian faith with one of his customers? Who goes home and does nothing with his life but share his faith with this next door neighbor who becomes Billy Graham the Savior of the world? Now, who in that chain of events was important? Who's choices mattered? Do you really want to say Billy Graham is the only important person in that series of events? Of course not. You know that what that grandmother did was just as important as anything Billy Graham had done. You know that what that shoe salesman did is just as important as anything anyone else has done. See this is the reality. God has a place for you in this world. God has a purpose for you on this planet. You're not an accident. You have been made in the image and the likeness of God. Don't waste that privilege. You're not a dog. You're not an animal. You are the image and the likeness of God and that means your life is worth something. So start asking yourself this question and I'm making the kinds of choices in my life that really are worthy of a king, worthy of a queen, worthy of someone who's going to turn the course of history. That's where it begins. Because if you think your life is not going to mount too much, you are right where the evil one wants you to be. Because you will never join in with the mission. So it starts off with you and me figuring out what in the world are we. You're the image and likeness of God told that learn the will of God in heaven and make it happen on this planet. Okay. It sounds pretty good to me actually. I kind of feel bad about my life sometimes. I feel like you know well, I don't know what it's going to mount to anyway. And so it does help me sometimes to know that Jesus believes I'm the image and likeness of God. Nestily God made me and that means that my life really can't amount to something even though most of the time doesn't feel like it. And it makes me want to join in with his mission. So what's the mission now? Sometimes you can have a great job title like image of God, likeness of God. But the job you get with a great title can really be a crummy job. I had that experience when I was about 17. I was teaching guitar in a little music studio in my hometown and I needed a full time job that summer. And so I asked the owner of this little studio, can I have a full time job? He said, well sure. Yeah, you can do that. Be fine. Come on in. And I said, well, what will the job be? He thought for a minute and he said, well, how about this? How about we call you the assistant to the owner? Oh, man. 17 years old. That sounded good to me. The assistant to the owner. I knew what that meant. That meant every time he left the office, I'd be able to boss everybody around. It wasn't long before I figured out, though, that being the assistant to the owner meant I had to do everything nobody else wanted to do. That meant cleaning the windows. That meant cleaning the toilets. That meant delivering grand pianos all by myself up flights of stairs. I remember that little Laurel and Hardy clip where they're pushing that piano up the stairs and they let it go and it goes down the stairs and falls into a thousand pieces. I've done that. There it went. All right, so it was a great job title, assistant to the owner, but the job, it really wasn't so good. Well, I have some good news for you. You can believe just for a moment that you really are as important as any king or emperor or empress has ever lived on this planet in God's plan for this world. You've got a great job on your hands too, something you can delight in. Now, listen to the way God describes it. It happens at verse 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 thing that moves on the ground. Now, let's be honest. Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over it. I may as well have said that to you in Russian for all that it means to you. Let's be honest for a minute. It's in the Bible and a lot of you would say, I believe in the Bible, but those words, they don't mean a whole lot to us usually. I mean, when was the last time you were at a party and you meet somebody new and they say, well, hi, what do you do? And you say, well, I'm fruitful and multiply, how about you? I have dominion over the earth. How's that going for you? Of course not. I mean, these words have never come to our lips when we think about what we do in life. How very strange that that's true, when this is the first thing God ever said about you and me, that he put us on this planet as his image so that it would be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over it. Now, you know, if that's the first thing God ever said about you and me, it might be a good idea to try to figure out at least a little bit of what that might actually mean for you and me.
When God first made the world and he says a number of times, that's good. That's good. That's very good. But you know, just as soon as he finished creating the world and setting it in place, one of the first things he says after that first chapter is he looks at Adam and he says, it's not good. Why would God say it's not good for Adam to be alone? It's because of this job that he's given to Adam. It's because of the role that he's given to you and me. And this role really sort of divides into two parts or two different areas of everyone's life. On the one side, we're supposed to multiply. On the other side, we're supposed to rule over the world. Now, I'm sure that back in the days before sin came into the world, Adam and Eve would have had children and they would have been the image of God, they'd have done the right thing and then they would have had children, they'd done the right thing and so on and so on. They'd have filled out the whole world, they'd have ruled over the world, everything'd be great. But something happened that made things very complicated for this image of God. It starts with an S, it ends with an N, and I'm right in the middle of it. Sin came into the world. And so because sin came into the world, people were corrupted, the human race failed, we actually turned against ourselves and turned against God and turned against each other. And the result is that multiplying is no longer just having babies and going out and doing everything you're supposed to do. Now multiplying means that we actually try to redeem people. We try to make more people who are faithful servants of God by bringing them to faith in Christ. That's one side of what you and I do. We are people who are supposed to be making more servants of God in the world. On the flip side of this, there's another thing we're supposed to do. And that is that as the people of God who really are concerned with learning God's will and making it happen down here, we're supposed to make the world the way God wants it to be. That means a place of justice, a place of mercy, a place of righteousness, a place of peace and honor. So humanity was put on this planet for the purpose of making more faithful servants of God in the world and for all those servants together to turn the world into a magnificent place that God designed it to be in the beginning. Sometimes I think I'm the only person in the world who gets up in the morning and ask the question, is it worth breathing again? I actually get up sometimes and ask that question. Is it worth it to try one more time? I mean most people get up and keep breathing in the morning just because they're afraid of the alternative. I'm not afraid of the alternative. The alternative doesn't bother me at all. So when I hear these words, sometimes I go, you know, is it really worth breathing again? Well if I can be a part of something that's actually ordained by God Himself, then it makes it worth breathing again. If I know I'm not spinning my wheels and something that's useless and a failure, I can get up. I can go at it again. And here it is. The reason your heart keeps beating, the reason your lungs continue to fill with air, the reason the neuro synapses in your brain keep firing is so that you can make more faithful servants of God in Jesus. And so that you can transform the world together into the kind of place that God wants this to be. That's why you breathe. I know you thought it was to travel the world because most of us nowadays have what we call our bucket list. If you don't know what that is, that's a metaphor that came from a movie that was very popular a few years ago. It's sort of, it's the list of things you want to do before you die. You want to make sure you do these six, seven things before you die. And most of us have one of those lists. You know, I want to go here. I want to go there. I want to do this. I want to meet that person. But for the most part, even faithful Christian people, even faithful followers of Jesus don't have on their bucket list. What I want to do is to make some more faithful servants of God in this world. And what I want to do before I die is together with them make this world a little more like God wants it to be. So when you think about your bucket list, nothing wrong with traveling, nothing wrong with buying that car that you like, nothing wrong with all the sorts of things we normally think about. But let me encourage you, if you are a servant of Jesus that your bucket list needs to include, I want to be a part of somebody coming to Jesus. I want to be a part of the world changing. That's who I want to be before I die. I want to be able to put my finger on how you see when people come to Christ, we come freely. There's no sense in which we ever earn anything with Jesus. We come to Him in faith and we ask for His forgiveness of our sins and He grants it freely to us. But once He sets us on that track, then what we want to do is from deep within to do the things that honor Him and the things that please Him. And on that bucket list of people who serve Him and who want to please Him is multiply images of God and have dominion over the earth. And to know where that's going, you have to go outside of Genesis 1, you have to go to the end of the Bible. Let me tell you how the Bible ends because this is just the beginning. But to understand that your victory or the direction of all this, you've got to think about the end. What's the end? The end is that the world is transformed into the place that is so wondrous, so magnificent that God Himself comes here and fills it all with His glory. That's what the Bible calls the New Heavens and the New Earth. And in that world, there are so many people who have been faithful servants of Christ who can't count them. And that world is so beautiful, so lovely, so full of justice and righteousness and goodness that is appropriate for the God of heaven and earth to come right here and be with His people. Now that's what we're going. And what's in the middle of all that? What's supposed to move history toward that goal? What's supposed to be the way in which all of this great glory is to come to the earth? It's really very simple. The means for all of this, it's you, the image, and the likeness of God. That's your mission. So how you're doing? Well, you know, Adam and Eve didn't do so well. Israel picked up on the mission. They were given it in a special way and they did okay in some ways, but even toward the end of the Old Testament, even they failed. And so for hundreds and thousands and thousands of years, God's people longed for someone to come to this planet, someone to be born here who could get it right. They longed for someone who would fill the world up with redeemed, faithful images of God, for someone, some human being who would rule over the world and turn it into this magnificent place where God's glory would dwell forever. They longed for that person to come, for centuries and centuries. And we know His name, the one who did come, the one who obeyed the Father in every way imaginable. The one who fulfills the mission of filling the world with images of God that are redeemed from sin and the one who now rules until all of his enemies are put under His feet and then makes all things new. And what is His name? Is this Jesus you believe in? It's this Christ, the Son of God. We all know that mission verse, don't we? Go there for and teach all nations that great commission verse. But you know, just before Jesus said that, He said something else to His disciples. He started off just before He ascended into heaven and He said this to Him, He said, guys, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Basically what He's saying to His disciples is this, I'm all that. I was so good that God has now given me all authority over everything. That means in other words, I was so good, I'm now the one who's going to fix it all. I, Jesus was so great that I am the one who's going to fulfill the mission of the human race on this planet. And if you and I have been Jesus, you know what we would have said next to those disciples. We would have said, I'm all that. So you sit back and watch the show. It's going to be incredible. Wait till you see what I do. That's what we would have said. But what's so very strange is that that's not what Jesus said. Oh Jesus made it clear, I'm the one that's going to do all this, but He didn't say to His disciples, now you sit back and watch what happens. No. What He said was this, because I'm all that and I rule over everything and I will complete the task, go there for and teach all nations. Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe everything I've commanded you and I will be with you right up to the end. I'll make sure that it all happens. In other words, Jesus looks at people like you and me who are the image of God but failures, the image of God but weak, the image of God but people who are afraid, people who don't have any courage, people who have small visions for their lives, people whose bucket list don't even include the mission of the church. He looks at us and he says, I'm going to give you the greatest privilege a human being could possibly want and here it is to join me in turning the earth into the kingdom of God. I'm going to give you the privilege of being on my mission with the sure knowledge that this mission will not fail. If I thought that the Christian faith was going to fail, I'd encourage you to go somewhere else for purpose, for destiny, for hope. If I thought for a moment that the efforts of reaching out to your next door neighbor would prove to be something that was worthless, I would tell you, don't bother. If I thought for a moment that you praying for the missionaries of this church would have no sure effect, no destiny, then I'd say spend your time praying about something else. If I thought for a moment that you raising your children to be followers of Jesus and sending them out along with you to fill the world up and to subdue it in the name of Jesus, I would say do something else. But here's what's so wonderful. We know the man who came here and was so good that it's guaranteed that he will reign over all and he has looked at you and me and he has said it cannot fail. So what was given to us in the very beginning is now something that is sure to be and you can be a part of it. My dad and I understood what my mother meant when she said I don't want this room to look like it was added to the house. Well, the mission of Jesus is not something to be attached to your life when you get around to it, something that you can do once you have everything else taken down. The mission is the original plan of what it means for you to be a human being, embrace it, love it, serve it and you will discover that your reward will be great. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we bless you because as grand as it is to be a human being rather than something else on this planet, we just know that we would be utter failures apart from you. We bless you and we honor you, but now we also know that we need Holy Spirit to write these things on our hearts and we need Holy Spirit to empower us to believe this and to live it out. Holy Spirit, our prayer is grace and our prayers that you will make us like Jesus. Thank you again for being here with us this morning. If you're here for the very first time, I'd like to get a chance to say hello to you out here in the lobby. If you've come by and let me greet you as you leave and then also we'll remind you that there will be no evening worship here tonight just because our teacher Neil is out sick today. Thanks again for being here. Would you receive now the Lord's benediction? Go now in the love of God the Father, the grace and mercy of God the Son, the fellowship and companionship of God, the Holy Spirit, and live the life I'm in.