Genesis 1:28-31 Everybody Rules

In the post below we talked about man’s unique nature – being made in the image of God. Yesterday we thought about what Genesis 1:28-31 tells us about our unique role as image bearers.

1. Remember: It’s a good thing! The whole creation and God’s purpose are very good (v31). To be human, (God's image bearer), is to be particularly blessed. (v28). Ultimately that blessing comes through enjoying relationship with Him and all He does for us.

2. God’s image bearer’s are to be fruitful and increase in number (v28). God desires his people to be fruitful and later He will prescribe marriage as the setting for this.

3. God’s image bearers are to rule and subdue. Ruling is not repression or exploitation but loving rule, just like God (see Psalm 145). Subduing is working to enjoy, overcome, conquer and develop the created world. From agriculture to every other form of culture so long as it does not elevate the creation higher that the creator. We are to subdue to consume and enjoy. We are to subdue for need and, yes for pleasure.

4. God’s image bearers are dependent on Him v29-30. It is God who gives us this role and He decides how it should be exercised.

Of course we need to remember the fall. The earth is scarred. We need more than the creation mandate, we need a redeemer. But there is real purpose and value in exercising our role even though the world is not as it was then.

So, what are you going to do this week to explore and enjoy God’s world, and to take care of God’s world?

Listen to the full sermon here...

Genesis 1.26,27: Men – intelligent monkeys or sophisticated machines?

What are human beings? Many people might consider them just advanced animals or like a super-computer. Sadly, when we consider ourselves just animals we can justify behaving like them. Or if we think of people as just machines we can simply turn them off and throw them away if they’re not working. But we are something more complex and wonderful than that. Genesis tells us that God created human beings as the pinnacle of His creation. He made men and women equal in status and dignity. They are the image of God – meaning they resemble in some way the divine. They are not the same as God but like a mirror they reflect God. Some of the ways we do that –
• Morality: a sense a right and wrong, holiness and evil
• Spirituality: a spiritual life enabling us to relate to God in prayer, praise and service
• Immortality: that we will not cease to exist but forever be praising God or punished by Him
• Mental Faculties: we can reason, think logically; communicate in abstract language. We can imagine and thus create. We have emotions
• Relationships: a profound need for community beyond the self-interest of animals
• Physically: not that God has a body but as He sees, hears speaks and feels, so do we.
• Rule: We act on God’s behalf to rule the world

All these characteristics are corrupted by the fall but we are still image bearers. With great joy we recognise that Jesus restores the image of God, that those who trust Jesus will be transformed into His likeness and when Jesus appears we shall be like him. We are more than a small cog in a massive machine. We mean something because God made us that way. We need to get back in contact with our maker and know what it really means to delight in Him.

Listen to the full sermon here...

Genesis 1:1-25 - In the beginning

God was there in the beginning: He is outside creation

The universe had a beginning and God was there. In Genesis 1 Moses describes the creator God who had saved and led his people Israel. God is our source of information, but we need to be humble about what he does and does not tell us. He made everything we see, but the focus is not so much on the process (how God did it) but on the purpose (for His glory, yes, but for making a place where men and women can live in relationship with God).

God made everything with good purposes

We cannot be adamant about the method. Survival of the fittest and adaptation is going on all the time in our world. We need to admit that we do not know precisely how God made things so we don’t know what trace that leaves behind. Certainly there is a common designer using common materials so it is perfectly reasonable that there is a commonality between all living things. However a number of factors make the biblical God incompatible with a total evolutionary framework
• He spoke and things happened instantly. Even allowing for the poetry it does not seem to do justice to the purposeful good precise activity of God to assume he had to wait for time and chance and many failed attempts
• He made everything after its kind (species). No hint of crossing the species boundaries which evolution demands.

We cannot insist Genesis is precisely describing sequence & time periods. Nor do we know how the fall, and later the flood affected the ageing processes. So discussions about the age of the earth are not really very productive. It would seem most reasonable that creation of the basic elements of our world happened instantaneously at the beginning and then the universe we know is called to order over 6 days, but Christians do differ over how to read Genesis 1.

What we know for certain is that God was there in the beginning and more precisely that Christ was there as the agent of creation. Our best approach is to introduce people to Jesus. When they know Him as Saviour and Lord they are ready to accept His explanation about what happened in the beginning.

Listen to the full sermon here...

Philippa Stroud criticised in the Observer

Reading this article it struck me that if the secular press were to visit most evangelical churches they would probably be outraged. Most of us in church leadership wouldn't be allowed to hold significant office in any of the three main parties. I'm not saying Philippa Stroud has the right approach though.

Read the article here

Observer Article on Religious Freedom

Thoughtful article from a atheist about the new intolerance

Nick Clegg and Christian Conscience

Click here for an article about the Liberal Democrat leader's position on some Christian related issues

Worth reading. It would be useful to have some analysis of where the parties stand on social justice, equality and diversity.

Preaching or Discussion Groups: what's best?

Is preaching an outdated authoritarian form of communication which will soon be a thing of the past. I don’t think the apostle Paul anticipated that. However, he did expect there would be seasons when people didn’t really want to listen to biblical preaching but preferred being flattered. Sound familiar?

The apostle Paul is in prison. The church is about to face persecution. There are people teaching things that distort the gospel. The most important thing his lieutenant Timothy must do is to preach.

Preaching is fundamentally a proclamation much more than a discussion. Mostly in the Bible, that means one person talking to group bringing them news from God. This works best because it models and in fact it is, the way God speaks. There are other methods of communication which are helpful to embed the word in our lives but preaching will be the primary way that God speaks to us in the church. Preaching if done well is culturally and intellectually neutral. It carries the least obstacle for hearing and responding.

So expect God to speak when you hear preaching

The content of preaching must be the word of God, meaning the gospel word of truth, also called sound doctrine. When Paul says gospel, he doesn’t just mean a narrow message about sin and salvation but anything to do with the story from creation to new creation.

This preaching should be eminently practical with correcting wrong behaviour and encouraging and urging right behaviour.

So expect God to speak to you about how you respond.

This kind of preaching is urgently needed because Christ will return to judge all men. We want to be ready and we want others to be ready too.

So pray for, and demand practical gospel preachers.

This is a summary of a sermon on 2 Timothy 4:1-5.

You can listen here to the full sermon here...