You Bear An Image Transcript

When Jesus asks for a coin, he asks whose title is on it, whose likeness, whose face, whose image is on this coin? And they have to reply well, it's Caesar's. So they could tell by looking at the coin, the likeness on it. They had seen it over and over again. They had used it for money in their daily lives, so they knew intrinsically what that coin looked like and whose image was on it. They had seen it so much perhaps they didn't even have to look at the coin to answer the question. It was that apparent. And so Jesus tells them because of the Caesar's image, because of the Caesar's title, give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God's. Now we get the first half. He asked about the coin. What is the image on the coin? We get it. The coin belongs to Caesar. Give it to him. It's his, with his title on it. But where does this give to God? What does God's come from? Where does this distinction come from?

I believe we have to go all the way back to the book of Genesis, when God is looking at the earth that is empty of life. God says let us form mankind in our image and he creates them. God creates us. God creates humanity in God's image. Now, what does that look like?

Because when I look at myself, when we look at ourselves in the mirror, when we look at those around us, it is sometimes incredibly hard to see God in our neighbor. It is incredibly hard to see God in our lives. It is incredibly hard to see even just hints of the image of God. And why is that? Well, the answer is sin. The answer is that because of the way we live, because of the sins of this world and the powers in this world at play, the image of God is often obscured. And how we live and how we treat one another and how we make decisions, in what we place, first and foremost, what we build our lives around, it becomes hard to see the image of God, and this plays out in how we treat one another. It is a lot easier to treat the immigrant as a foreign invader because we can't see the image of God within them. It is far easier to see the person that has angered us and wronged us and write them off completely if we don't see the image of God within them. It's very easy that if we do not see the presence and the image of God that they were created with, to think that they'd have no value. But is this how God sees us? Is this how God interacts with us? Is this how God wants us to live?

Now I watch a lot of strange videos on YouTube. I often go down rabbit trails and Eliana and I started watching this guy who restores toys and arcade games and old mechanical toys and makes them look brand new. It's fascinating to watch and get rid of the lead, the rust, the accumulation of dirt and make these things shiny and new again. Now one area of these videos has to do with coins and restoring and polishing coins, and they'll start by showing the coin that is accumulated dirt and grime to the point where you could not see or make out the relief on the outside. It was just pure darkness, pure dirt, pure Well, it's just flat, and oftentimes when you watch these videos, they'll take a masking tape and cover over half and then they'll spend time and energy and cleaning supplies and polishing paste and all of that to clean away the grime and clean up the dirt so that you can see the relief behind it. Now I ask you this did he spend that much time? Because the coin without being cleaned has no value. Did he spend that much time because it was worthless until it was clean? Or did he know and believe that that coin had value and the value was being obscured and hidden because of the dirt and the crime that accumulated? Obviously, if it had no value, if it was just a mental plug, if it was something of insignificance, it would not be worth the time to clean it up.

As I said, we in a living, our lives, we are like that coin. We bear the image and likeness of God in our lives and in our living. We were created in the image of God, with the characteristics that come with that of love, of patience, of kindness, of creativity, of life-giving, of justice and mercy. These are the image of God that we were created with and through our lives and through all of the things that have happened to us and around us as a result of sin and the powers in this world. That image of God that we have been created with to treat our neighbors, to treat ourselves, to treat the least and the lost among us with value. All of it just gets covered. We can't see the value in ourselves and we certainly can't see it in the other. And because of Christ, because of His work, because of His life, death and resurrection, the grime can be cleaned. The dirt that is accumulated, that obscures the image of God, can be polished away, so that again the image of God that we have been created with can shine anew. And I want to make that clear.

Just like that coin that is polished had value before it was polished, we do not just gain value in God's eyes after Christ's death and resurrection. Christ died because God loves us. Christ died and rose again because God sees value in us and sees what has been lost and covered. God loves the world so much that he gave His one and only Son so that none should perish but all have eternal life. You don't do that. You don't leave the splendor of heaven itself becoming human, and not only that, but becoming a slave, being born in a manger of walking and being tested and criticized and flogged and beaten for the sake of something that has no value.

And so when we look at others, and because of sin, we look at them as looking through a glass, dimly covered in the very grime that we are trying to clear away. Through sinful eyes, we see no value in the other. We think of them, less than we judge them as society judges them, but instead, through Christ cleaning and through us working alongside Him, growing and becoming sanctified, of becoming more like Christ in our daily living, through prayer, through study, through small groups, through fasting. When we become little Christians, little Christ, we begin to see not only value in ourselves, but we can no longer look at those that society views as value less. The same way we look at them, we catch glimpses of the image of God, kind of like that coin that's dirty. If you kind of tilt it in the right way, you can kind of see some a little bit of light reflecting off the ridges and you know there's something there and you know it can be cleaned away, and you know that it's not just some worthless piece of metal but something that has value.

And so we want to share Christ with them. We want to introduce them to the one who can make them clean, the one that can take away the crime and the sin that is accumulated both through their own actions but also through the actions of others and the powers and principalities in this world. We want them to see for themselves the value that they have being created in the image of God. We want to clean up the grind that covers our own eyes so that we can see clearly the image of God and others, and we want to live in such a way that people don't have to stare at us and wonder who we belong to.

When Jesus held up that coin and said, whose image is on this coin, whose title is on this coin? And the people could answer, even from a distance. I will, caesar's. We want people to be able to look at us and look at how we live and how we interact with others and how we interact online, and how we treat the least and the loss, the first, the forsaken in our world. And we want people from that distance, without having to think about it at all, to say you bear the image of God, you belong to God.

How do we do that? We do that by living, by loving, by being and bearing the very characteristics of God that we read about in 1 Corinthians. Are we patient? Are we kind? Do we boast? Are we slow to anger? These are just some of the characteristics of God and whose image we are made, that we find in the scripture.

There are so many more, but we've got to start somewhere. We've got to start somewhere in choosing this day to live as God's image bearers, not for our sake and not for our prestige, and not so that we look better, so that we look clean and shiny, forgetting about the, the grime of the world and the things that cover up the image of God in others, but so that others may look, may see, without having to stare or look too hard, who we belong to, whose image we bear, and I pray, as they do so, they began to see their own image of God within them and seek for themselves the restoration that Christ brings. My hope and prayer is that for each and every one of us that we call out to God for forgiveness, we find restoration of the image of God that is within us. We recognize our own worth as God's image bearers and we don't let anything tell us we're worthless.

And then we go into a world where people are hurting. People are told that they are less valued. People are told that they are unwanted and unloved. People are told that they have, that they are grimy, that they are unwelcome, that they are ultimately lost forever. And we help them see that they bear God's image and help introduce them to the one that can wipe it all away, and that they too will know and they live lives in such a way, offering up to God that which bears God's image themselves, their lives, so that others may too know whose image they bear, whose title they bear as a forgiven, adopted child of the holy.