God created us in His image, and that includes his ability to think. So how should we utilize this gift that he has given us?

<p>God created us in His image, and that includes his ability to think. So how should we utilize this gift that he has given us?</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

The Nicodemus Society

David Kim

Thinking in God’s Image

It's wonderful to be with you this morning.

Lord God, our Father, once more we come before you to ask for your blessing, especially upon the message.

Lord, you have laid a message upon my heart.

Lord, you know how I've been preparing and praying over it this week, Lord, and you know how I've been praying for this congregation, for each person who would be here, because you knew in advance who would be here to receive this message.

And so, Lord, I pray that all of the prayer and that the Holy Spirit would all come together, Lord, in this moment, at this time, so that each and every 1 could receive this message.

Let me not be seen, Lord, but let this be purely Your words.

We pray this in the powerful name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, amen.

Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

Of course the first thing we think about is physical, physical creation.

And according to many passages in both the Old and the New Testaments, it is clear that there is a physical resemblance between ourselves and our Creator.

For example, in Exodus chapter 33, when Moses asks God to show him, show Moses God's glory, when he says to God, show me your glory, God says, I cannot show you my face because no man can see my face and live.

But he says to Moses that I will hide you in the cleft of the rock, I will cover you with my hand, and I will show you my back." And so from that passage we know that God has a face, that God has a hand, And God has a back.

And that was Exodus, but in Revelation chapter 1, verse 13 through 16, we see a description of Jesus Christ in heaven.

And it says that Jesus has feet and a chest and head and hair, eyes, a voice, mouth and face.

We see very clearly both in the Old and the New Testament and there are many other passages we could look at that God has a physical component and that part of being created in God's image is the physical component.

We see that God is a physical God and that we are his physical creation.

But there is more to it than just being like God in the physical sense.

And when you look through the scripture, you can see God expressing the full range of emotions, ranging from love, joy, and gladness, to anger, sadness, regret, and everything in between.

And so we can also see that God is an emotional God and that we are his emotional creation.

Emotions are directly connected to the next dimension of being created in God's image.

Building upon our emotional nature, we are also relational.

We are relational just as God is relational.

From time immemorial, God Himself was defined by a relationship.

That relationship was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

From the very beginning, we see that God the Father created all things through Jesus Christ, His Son, and that the Holy Spirit was hovering over the waters of the deep.

And from the creation, we see that God created us in His image.

He did not create us in solitude, but he created us as a pair.

And then the first thing he said was to be fruitful and multiply.

In other words, to make another, to make a family.

And God uses many other relationships throughout the Bible as illustrations of who he is and how he relates.

He talks about father and child, mother and infant, groom and bride, husband and wife, friend, teacher and disciple.

He even talks about himself as a mother hen with his chicks.

And so we see that God is a relational God and we are His relational creation.

But there is yet another element, another dimension in which we are created in the image of God.

Let me quote to you from the book, Education, page 17.

And it reads, every human being, every human being, created in the image of God is endowed with a power akin to that of the Creator.

The men in whom this power is developed are the men who bear responsibilities, who are leaders in enterprise, and who influence the character.

Being created in the image of God not only has physical, emotional, and relational components, but he also gives us a power that is described as being akin, or another way to describe that is essentially similar.

He gives us a power that is essentially similar at its essence to his own power, and that is the power of individuality, which is further defined as the power to think and to do.

We are not some highly evolved form of a thoughtless machine who simply executes pre-programmed instructions.

Rather, God gave us the incredible gift of having the power, the power akin to his own to make decisions, to establish identity, to make choices and to take actions.

God gave us the power to think and to do.

This is a thought which we could expound upon for many hours.

But given the time we have this morning, I'd like to focus on 1 component, and that component is the power to think.

Now the word think can be defined in multiple ways, but the Most pertinent to our discussion this morning is what Webster's Dictionary describes as the exercise of the powers of judgment, of conception, or inference, also known as to reason, The power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking especially in orderly, rational ways.

This is what we are talking about this morning, to think.

God created us as rational beings and God calls us to exercise this power to think.

Yet somehow, somehow, we Christians have become labeled and stereotyped as people who do not think.

We have become labeled and stereotyped as people who turn our brains off.

And according to some in the world, we are willfully ignorant at best and imbecilic and stupid at worst.

Now maybe this is an American stereotype.

I know we are from many countries in this room, but In any of your countries, is there this perception that Christians are people who have turned their brains off, who are ignorant or imbecilic or stupid?

Could you raise your hand if you're from a country where this perception exists?

So actually, it is a very small percentage of this room.

I would say 5% of this congregation comes from a country where Christians are considered this way.

So from 95% of you, you are from a country that does not have this kind of stereotype about Christians.

That must be quite an amazing experience to live in a country where you are not perceived as ignorant, imbecilic, or stupid, or potentially stereotyped that way by virtue of your faith.

And I would dare say to you, praise God for the privilege of growing up and living in such a country.

But I will tell you that in the United States, large parts of Europe and other of these sorts of countries, there is this stereotype.

Okay, so even if you are not from a country that suffers from this situation, you are aware that such a stereotype exists.

All right, so that is what we are talking about this morning.

And I want to give you an illustrative set of quotations from 1 person.

He's a very famous author, scientist, and by his own definition, an anti-theist, not atheist, anti-theist philosopher named Richard Dawkins.

Have any of you heard of Richard Dawkins?

If you've heard of Richard Dawkins, please say amen.

He's a famous author, scientist, and anti-theist philosopher.

Here's just a sampling of some of his quotations in his best-selling books.

First 1 is, he writes, I'm against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

Religion teaches us to be satisfied not understanding the world.

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Thinking in God’s Image

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