The Beauty of the Image of God

Sermon Transcript:

(transcribed with AI)

Promontory Community Church exists to make disciples of Jesus who know, live, and share the gospel for the glory of God.

Well, good morning everyone. My name is Jonathan — for those of you who might not know me — I have the privilege of being one of the pastors here. We have been doing a sermon series throughout the summer called Ancient Beauty in a Modern World, looking at the beautiful answers of God to our lives today.

Over these past couple of weeks we've been noticing the fact that this is a very old book — an ancient book. The most recent parts were written 2000 years ago and life looks very different today than it did when this was written. So the question often becomes, does the Bible actually have anything to say to us?

A lot has changed in 2000 years. Probably the biggest change is to do with the technology that is around us. Most of you probably drove here in a car, most of you probably have a cell phone in your pocket, we take the Internet for granted — that's just a basic requirement of life today — and even more so we've seen AI start to enter into all of life. So we look at a book like this written thousands of years ago, and we ask the question, does it have anything to say to our modern life? How should we apply something like this to our life today? We live in a day when AI has become very common. Does the Bible actually teach us how to handle that?

I'm going to answer yes. The Bible actually does teach us something about how we are to interact with the technology of our day, and even AI that we now have in our world. We've seen a lot of different advances throughout time, and AI is kind of just the next one. We saw the industrial revolution — suddenly factories existed that could produce things way faster than any one person working. Suddenly workers were replaced. Then automation came to those factories and again workers were replaced. Now we sit with AI replacing people in all kinds of different jobs and roles.

But probably the biggest difference between what happened before and what is happening now is how our technology has begun to replace us — not simply in producing something, but now actually seemingly replacing human thought. Computers can now somehow think to themselves. An AI computer can take a problem given to it, analyze it through a whole bunch of different lenses and models, take huge amounts of data — more than any of us could ever think through — and give a statistically likely outcome.

I had the opportunity to sit down with someone who actually works with AI and he explained it to me. I'm not an expert, so I won't even pretend like I am. But even just from what you've probably seen, you've seen what AI can create in our world. It can create a piece of writing, a picture, video, sounds — everything that a computer could in theory do, AI can do. It can write computer code, solve huge math problems, or even help you redecorate a room. It can take things like art, music, and literature — things that have till now been exclusively human creations — and begin to make them.

I know there are lots of problems with AI — we've all seen the pictures of four fingers or twelve fingers. But more and more we're going to see a lot of those problems get covered over. We could probably talk about this issue in a thousand different ways — everything from the environmental impact to the resources it consumes, to the challenges with education or even the workforce. The reality is Pandora's box has been opened. It's here, it's part of our world, and so the question becomes, how do we respond to it? Does our Bible actually have anything to say on this issue?

I think not only does the Bible teach us how we should handle this, but it actually gives a more beautiful picture. Here is why I think AI strikes us so differently than so many other technologies that have come before it — it's because AI poses a challenge to how we think of ourselves as human. If we as human beings are just highly thinking animals, well, AI is faster, smarter and more creative than we are. If we define ourselves by our ability to create art or music or literature, it is a threat to our being. Just look at any movie that's been made about AI and you can tell where it goes — AI replaces humanity by the end of the movie.

However, this is where the Bible actually gives us a far more beautiful picture of what it means to be human. We are more than just creative or thinking animals. We are more than our biology or even what we are able to produce. We are made in the image of God. This is such an important foundation for understanding our value as human beings, but also our purpose here on Earth.

So this morning we're going to open our Bibles to the very beginning. Genesis chapter one. Last week we looked at the very end of the Bible — this week we're looking at the very beginning. This book, written some 3500 years ago, actually helps us understand who we are as human beings, and also how we can interact with the technology around us. We're going to start in Genesis chapter 1 verse 26.

It's our tradition to stand as we read God's word. If you're able to, would you stand with me?

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image. In the image of God He created him; male and female, he created them.

You may be seated.

The book of Genesis is the very first one in our Bibles, and that's not simply because it chronologically starts at the beginning, but because Genesis gives us a foundation for really everything else that we see afterwards. Genesis gives us our baseline, our foundation for how we are to understand not only how God has created us, but many of the challenges we have in life now.

Many of you are probably familiar with this first chapter of the book of Genesis. It starts with God creating the heavens and the earth and then filling his creation with purpose each day — separating light and dark, sea and sky, lands and ocean, ordering the sun and moon, creating the birds and fish and the animals. Each time God does this, he starts with the phrase "Let there be" — and then it was. Let there be light, light exists, on and on each day.

But when it comes to God creating humanity, suddenly the pattern shifts. It's not just a "let there be," but rather God has this almost introspective discussion with himself about how and why he is going to create humanity. From the very outset we see that God views humanity — us as human beings — differently than the rest of all creation.

There is so much in these two short verses that we could mine out. We could talk about the doctrine of the Trinity that we start to see here. We could talk about what it means to have dominion over the earth, the equality of men and women before God, or what it means to be fruitful and multiply. But this morning there is just one thing I want us to look at — what does it mean to be made in the image of God?

I'm going to argue it means three things. It means we are made to know God, we are made to represent God, and we are made to be in fellowship with one another. If we understand this, we find that technology around us is not a replacement or something destroying what God has created, but can actually be a tool for good.

Let's start at the beginning. We are made to know God. Look back at your text, verse 26:

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."

It's important to recognize right off the bat what this means and what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that we look like God. God is spirit — the Bible tells us that over and over again. When he makes us, it's not because we resemble what God looks like. Rather, it's describing something else. It describes our position with God and actually defines our relationship to Him.

If you go forward just a few chapters in the book of Genesis, you get to Genesis 5, and we read this:

When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.

The wording there is exactly the same that God had just used to talk about his creation of humanity. In the same way that having a child defines your relationship together — father and son — so God's creation of humanity defines our relationship to God. There's a reason why in the Bible we are told to refer to God as Father, because we are created to be in relationship with him.

If you go forward in the story, that's exactly what God does. When God creates Adam and Eve, he doesn't create them and then say "see you later." He rests with them, speaks with them, talks with them — he actually knows them, they know God, they have this beautiful, open, joyful relationship. That's what God created us to experience, and that's part of what it means to be made in his image.

God has treated us not like slaves or servants, not robots to be wound up and let go. God did not create us out of boredom or necessity because he needed something from us. We were created as his children, that we could enjoy his presence in our lives. God created us as an overflow of his own love and joy so that we could experience his love and joy. This is why the pursuit of something we find pleasurable is so powerful in our lives — we were created to enjoy the very presence of God. That's what we were designed to do, to enjoy a relationship with God. You are created in his image that you might know God.

In fact, in Deuteronomy 6 — what Jesus himself will call the greatest commandment — we read this:

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.

Jesus says this is the greatest commandment. Notice it's not something to go and do. What does he say? It is to love God. Why? Because that's what God created us for. God created us to know him, to love him, and to enjoy his presence in all of our lives.

It's more than an open secret to say we don't experience that now. The Bible is very clear why that is. Adam and Eve sinned — they turned away from God — and that relationship God created us to experience was broken. Sin has broken the very reason for our existence. That beautiful relationship we were created to have with God was severed and we stand rightly under his judgment against our sin.

From chapter 3 onward, the entire question of the Bible is, can that be restored? God created us to experience this joy in relationship to knowing God — is there any hope that what was destroyed by sin might be repaired? All throughout the Bible we see people trying to work on this on their own. Trying to do enough good things, trying to build a tower up to God, using cities and technology to replicate or replace what God had created them to experience — and all of it, over and over again, failing.

It's not until Jesus that we actually see the real solution. We needed someone who could come, deal with the consequences of our sin, and actually restore us into relationship with God himself. So God entered into humanity. Jesus — fully God and fully man, the one person who could stand between humanity and God himself — Jesus came, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross. He died to pay the penalty for our sin, and he rose again three days later so that we might actually have a relationship with God. Jesus died in our place. He rose again that we might actually live with God, that we might come to know him.

In fact, Jesus, just before going to the cross, prays in John 17:

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Why did Jesus go to the cross? So that we might know God. The very thing we were created for — to know God and experience his goodness for all of eternity — is found in Jesus Christ. For all who place their faith in him, we are restored into this right relationship with God. For everyone who confesses their sins and turns from them, we find that the very love, peace and joy we were created to experience is given in Christ.

The prophet Isaiah writes:

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, covered me with a robe of righteousness — as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, as a bride adorns herself with jewels.

And then just a few verses later:

As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

Isaiah recognizes that in our salvation found in Jesus, not only is our greatest joy, but God himself delights in us. This is not a one-way street. We do not approach God as if he is stoic and unmoved and unfeeling — God rejoices as we know him. Jesus himself says in Luke 15:

Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

When we come to Jesus, there is joy and rejoicing in heaven. The very joy that God created us to experience is found in Jesus Christ. Here is the open invitation to everyone who would believe — place your trust in Jesus and know what God has created you for. God created us to experience his love and joy in knowing him.

Here's why we need to start with that foundation. If we start with something else, it is so easy for us to get ourselves all out of whack. God created us to know him, and yet so often what we find is that our technology begins to distract. AI has the ability to entertain, amuse, even serve our needs like never before. What's so dangerous about that is not simply what it can create, but what it replaces — because AI will never actually replace a relationship with knowing God.

The danger is not so much in what AI can do, but in our beginning to worship it. In the Old Testament, God would often warn against worshiping idols, asking, "Why have you created something and then begun to worship it?" Our greatest danger today is doing exactly that with AI — that we begin to worship our very creation and trust that AI will actually solve all of our problems.

Paul warns in Galatians:

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?

Any idol of our heart ultimately begins to enslave us, like an addiction that pulls us further and further in. When I say AI will enslave us, I don't mean in some Terminator sense — I mean in an idolatrous sense. That we become so reliant, so focused, so worshiping the creation, that we forget about our Creator. We are made for a relationship with God first. That is what transforms these things from things that are controlling us into tools we can actually use rightly. Even AI can help us do many things, but we are made to know God first. Do not worship the tool. It is only when we have our relationship with God right that we can interact with the things God has given us rightly.

God made us in his image to show what kind of relationship we have with him, but also that we might represent him. Look back at your text, verse 26:

"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

God actually makes humanity and then says, "I'm setting you in charge — take care of all the rest of creation." Adam and Eve were put in the garden in order to watch over it and care for it in his image. What we need to recognize is that everything we do is intended to reflect God's character and his holiness. Just like a mirror reflects your image, we are to reflect not God physically, but God's character — who he is, what he is like. God has designed humanity to reflect who he is, in his holiness and his goodness, on the earth. That's our job.

God has created every human being to function this way. We're not just animals that simply make choices based on whatever we need — we are actually called to take into consideration what is right and good. God has given us a moral sense that we can understand: this is a good and right action, this is a wrong and evil one. So that we might reflect God in his goodness, in his holiness — that is his moral perfection.

And here is the problem of sin. Sin is more than just trying to do things on your own or making a few mistakes — it is taking God's reputation and dragging it through the mud. Imagine you owned a company. You're the boss, and you're going to send out one of your employees to do door-to-door sales. He goes out wearing your company shirt, handing out your business card, and while he's doing that, every house he goes to, he starts yelling at the owner, cussing at them, breaking things. Suddenly you are getting a whole bunch of complaints, and you say, "But I didn't do anything." No — but someone in your name certainly did. You're going to call that employee and say, "What are you doing?" And the answer isn't, "It doesn't matter to you what I do." Well, it does matter — if you bear my name, if you're working for my company, everyone's angry at me because of what you've done.

Please recognize that is exactly what we've done with God. Our sin — taking on his character, his image, and dragging it through the mud — is like putting God to shame by how we've chosen to act in his name. Why does God care about sin so much? Because we're vilifying him. And once again, the very thing we are created to do — which sin has so broken — has put us into conflict with God. It's not until Jesus comes that anything begins to change.

Colossians 3 says that when we place our faith in Christ:

For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God, and have put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

When we come to Christ, it is the image of God that we were created to show that is now being renewed in our life. I know it doesn't happen all at once — we're still sinful people — but by the grace of God, the more we come to know him, the more our life begins to reflect his character more and more.

In First Thessalonians, Paul writes:

For this is the will of God, your sanctification — that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor — for God has not called us for impurity but in holiness.

God called us to reflect his holiness. He made it so that we could bear his image and reflect his glory in the world. Another way to say that — we are made to worship him. Reflecting who he is, in the joy of knowing him, God made us to worship him. And we need to recognize that whatever we are doing, that is the purpose God has given to us.

Hear me — AI could very conceivably write a worship song, but it cannot worship. AI could create a piece of art, but it cannot bring glory to God. AI could even tell you what the right thing is to do, but it cannot reflect the character and the goodness of God. That is yours and yours alone. God has created us in his image uniquely, that we might worship and reflect him.

Jesus himself says:

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

God has created you in a unique way so that you can do what nothing else in all of the universe can do — and that is to bring glory to God in reflecting his image. No matter how strong or weak you are, that is what we get to do. In fact, Paul himself will say:

But he — that is Jesus — said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

God promises to meet us in our weaknesses, to actually help us, so that we would reflect his glory. Do not be scared should you be insufficient for all things — recognize those are opportunities to reflect the goodness of God. We're made to represent him, to worship him. Don't let anything steal the joy of knowing and relying on God.

God made us in his image to know him, to represent him, and finally to be in fellowship with one another. Look back at our text, verse 27. We get this first bit of almost poetry in our Bible as God creates humanity:

So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him; male and female, he created them.

We're meant to see not only that this is the basis for the equality of men and women, but also our need for one another. In fact, if you know the story, just the next chapter — the first time anything that is "not good" appears — is when Adam is alone. Genesis 2 says:

Then the Lord said, "It is not good that the man should be alone."

We are created in the image of God, not to be alone. Just as God has always existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he has created us not to be on our own. Just as God has always existed in loving fellowship, he creates humanity to reflect that dynamic. It is not good for us to exist on our own. I hear all the introverts going, "I'm OK on my own" — and hear me, I am very introverted, I need to recharge on my own — but I also need to be with people. I need people who know me, who care about me, and I need to care for others, just as every other human being does.

Just like everything else we've seen, sin has broken what we are created for. As soon as the fall happened, Adam and Eve began blaming each other. Sin broke our relationship with God, and it breaks our relationship with others. Instead of self-sacrificial love, it was replaced with selfishness and care for ourselves alone. Fighting broken relationships and the mess that we experience began. It's only in Jesus that we can see those relationships restored.

First John tells us:

But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

In Jesus we are brought closer into fellowship with one another than anything else. God makes us into family. The church is meant to be the place where, in Christ, we have family around us, no matter our background, no matter where we've come from. This is a place of belonging. I know no church is going to be perfect, but by the grace of God we continue to strive for what God created us to be — where we not only experience love from others but show it as well.

First John says:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

If we are made in the image of a loving God, it means we are created not only to love God, but to love one another. It's something no amount of technology will ever replace. I'm well aware it is possible today to live at your home and never see anyone — you can have food delivered, you don't have to go out. We have made it possible, but it is not a good thing for us. AI can make a bot for you to talk to, and yet it will never love you, and try as you might, you cannot truly love it. It is a poor replacement for what God created you to experience.

God made you to experience his amazing love and share it with others. It's why it's so important to come to church. To be physically present with other people matters — not just for our mental health — because it's part of the purpose God created you for. Don't hide from the joy and love God created you to experience.

God made us in his image to know him, to represent him, to worship him, and to be in fellowship with one another. And here's the good news — the beautiful truth — is that when we understand the beauty of how God has created us, it actually helps us use all of the technology around us rightly. The answer is not to get rid of all technology, all AI, and turn the clock backwards. No — it's to use it rightly.

When we realize God created us to be in relationship with him, it guards us from making these things into idols — from trying to place on them a value they can never support, or trying to make them do something they weren't created to do. Don't place your hopes and dreams on what will ultimately let you down. When we realize God has created us to represent him, to worship him, it keeps us from worshiping our computers and gives us purpose for what we do. You are more than just what you can produce. When we realize God has created us to show love to one another, it guards us from cutting ourselves off and trying to replace one another with technology.

When we understand how God has created us, it places our technology in its proper place — tools we can use to show the glory of God. Suddenly even a tool like AI, with all the good and the bad that it contains, rightly sits not as the idol of our hearts, not as a replacement of humanity, but as a tool to be directed for the glory of God. God has made us in his image to represent him, to know him, and to love one another. We are made in his image, and that is a beautiful thing.

Let's pray together.

Our heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much. Though you have made us to know you, to represent you, and to love one another, Lord, we confess that our sin has broken that, that we have gone our own way. But Father, thank you for sending Jesus. Thank you for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ — that though our sin has separated us, it is the grace of Jesus that has brought us back. It is your mercy, your goodness, your love for us. Father, I pray, would you allow us to live in light of what you have done, even using the tools around us to bring you glory. Father, I pray, would everything in our lives resound with your image for your glory. We ask these things in your name. Amen.