Genesis 1.26-28

Milford Baptist Church, 17 November 2002

One of my favourite photos is a photo of a little boy gazing quizzically into a large mirror, enthralled by the image reflected there. He's asking himself the question: "Who is this person?"

Ever stared in a mirror and asked yourself that question? "Who am I?" How would you answer the question?

Have you heard of Steve Gurney? He's one of this country's elite multipart athletes. Incredibly driven. Last year he was interviewed in North & South Magazine. He talked about the time when he nearly died when he contracted leptospirosis while racing in Borneo. He couldn't exercise. His hardened muscles shrivelled. And for six months he was severely depressed. He wanted to commit suicide. He said:

"My sport was everything to me. I liked winning races, because it made me feel good about myself. Then I started wondering if I had a weakness, that I had to do these races to feel good about myself. It's something I'm still trying to get to the bottom of. It's ego, it's self-esteem, self-confidence. It's identity. As a kid I didn't have a lot of self-esteem or confidence... I was short and small. To be totally honest, I think that's why I go to the lengths I do in sport, at the expense sometimes of my friends and relationships."

Steve Gurney is not alone. Many people today would say: "Who am I? I am what I make myself to be, independent of anyone else." Is that true? Are we just the sum total of our achievements?

I had a friend at primary school called David Melrose. I haven't seen him for years. But back in the 1970s, his parents were, I guess, hippies. Unfortunately for David, that meant he was sent to school wearing funny clothes, sporting an appalling haircut, and smelling like he'd eaten garlic for breakfast. So David acquired the unfortunate nickname: Garlic Face. I can still remember us taunting him. Kids can be so cruel. I can just imagine David walking slowly home, with tears in his eyes, and the thought rattling around in his head: "Who am I? I'm Garlic Face. I'm hated. I'm useless." Is that true? Are we just what other people make us to be? Some people would say so. They'd say that young criminal offenders that end up in court are just the product of their environment.

But maybe there's a better answer to the question, "Who am I?" Listen to this: Genesis 1:26-28.

Out of all the creatures that he made, God says that humans are different: he made us in his image. Just like a son resembles his father, just like Karl's paintings express his personality, just like a mirror reflects a person's likeness, we were made to be like God. How do we do that? Theologians have spent lots of time trying to discover the one characteristic that makes us like God. Is it some quality we possess: our ability to reason or create or distinguish between right and wrong? Is it some function we perform, as caretakers of creation? Look closely. "Let us make humans in our image...male and female he created them." Just as God is "us" - Father, Son and Spirit living together in perfect relationship - we find our true identity through our relationships with one another - and our relationship with God. So how does that answer the "Who am I?" question?

When you get up tomorrow morning and look in the mirror say to yourself, "I am God's." Once upon a time some people asked Jesus whether they should keep paying their taxes. Jesus looked at a coin and asked them: "Whose image appears on this?" Caesar's. "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God's." In other words, Jesus was saying, "Give your money to Caesar because it bears his image. It belongs to him. But give yourself to God because you bear his image. You belong to him." Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German theologian realised that. He said, "Who am I? You know, O God. Whoever I am, I am yours." We find our true identity when we turn to God.

Secondly, when you look in the mirror tomorrow morning, say to yourself, "I am valuable." Think about it, when the Creator of the Universe wanted to create something like himself, someone who could freely love him, he made you. We are the pinnacle of his creation. That has implications for the way we treat one another. Every single person, whether they be a new immigrant, or an unborn child, or a criminal terrorist - however much the image of God in them may be distorted - they deserve our protection and our love. They are made in God's image.

But there's one other implication for how we view ourselves. I have a couple of old chairs that I rescued some time ago. They're scratched and stained. But I'm sanding them, varnishing them, slowly but surely restoring them to their original condition. We're all a bit like those chairs. None of us reflects God's image like we should. We're fallen. We doubt God, we mistreat each other. The image has got a bit fuzzy. But there's one person who perfectly reflects God's image (Heb 1:3). He lived the perfect life on our behalf. And Jesus says that if we will trust him, and choose to pattern ourselves after him, God himself will restore us to our original condition. As the Apostle Paul says, "All of us can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord...As the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him" (2 Cor 3:18). So when we wake up tomorrow morning, we can look in the mirror and say, "I am being restored." One day I will be just like Jesus, perfect (1 John 3:2). Until then, as the Body of Christ, it's our responsibility through our relationships with each other, to give the world a glimpse, a reflection, of what God is really like. Are we doing that?

As a child the Duke of Windsor was educated by his father King George V. His dad would often walk with him through Windsor Castle, showing him all the treasures of the palace. And he would say to him, day after day, "Never forget who you are." God says to us, "Never forget whose you are." The truth about our identity, the answer to the question "Who am I?" is this: We are God's. We are valuable to him. And he is restoring us, each one of us, and all of us together as a church community, as we trust in him, the One who made us in his image.

Study Questions

1. In the book, Les Miserables, Jean Valjean asks the question: "Who am I?" How would you answer that question?

2. What do you think are the main causes of youth suicide in New Zealand today? Would one of them relate to the self-image of young people?

3. What does it mean to be made in the image of God (see Genesis 5:3)?

4. Are human beings more like marbles in a bag or pieces of a jigsaw puzzle? Why?

5. What are the implications of us being made "male and female"?

6. When the book of Genesis was first written, kings in the ancient near East often installed in cities where they could not personally be present images of themselves to represent their power and majesty. In the same way, do you think God has placed us on the earth to represent him, to show all of creation what God is really like?

7. How do we reflect God's character to people around us? How do we fail to do that? In what ways can we as individuals and a church community reflect God's image more brightly?

8. Do you think non-Christians still bear the image of God, or did we all lose it when Adam fell (Genesis 3)?

9. If the image of God in all of us has been somehow distorted by sin, how can it be restored (Rom 8:28-29; 2 Cor 3:18; Col 3:10; 1 John 3:12; 1 Cor 15:49)?