Respecting the Imago Dei (Imago Dei #3)
When I was in the fourth grade I had a love-hate relationship with recess. I loved it because I got to go outside. I hated it because I would inevitably end up out on the big grassy area where most of the boys gathered for an impromptu game of football — and I would stand there while the self-appointed captains picked their teams, and I would be one of the last chosen.
I never understood it. Just because I was smaller, slower, and weaker than everyone else, they still, for some reason, did not want me on their team. There were times it came down to me and one other guy, and the two captains would look at each other and shrug, as if to say, I don’t want him. You want to take them both?
This hierarchy of humanity — this business of determining who is worthy of being on your team, worthy of being in your life — can be genuinely harmful and damaging. And yet we do it constantly. We are always ranking people, always determining who is better than everyone else, always looking for the GOAT, the greatest of all time.
Ranking can be fun when it is harmless, like the top 25 movies about ducks. We all know which one tops that list.
But when it comes to kids on a playground, or certain people in a certain department at work, or certain kids at school, or people in your neighborhood, or the group that votes differently, or people who look different and sound different — it stops being fun and silly. It becomes dangerous, and sometimes deadly.
You might think that is extreme. Just look at history. People have been abused, mistreated, and killed because of their skin color, or their tribe, or how they vote, or how they worship, or what they believe, or what they wear, or how they behave in public. We would love to say that was a World War II problem, a Germany problem, a Hitler problem. Sadly, some of it still happens today.
So it has to change. And I believe what will change it is an understanding of the imago Dei.
Where We Have Been
This is week three of a series called the Imago Dei, a Latin phrase meaning the image of God.
In week one we went to Genesis 1:26–27 and saw the triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — say together, “Let us make mankind in our image.” Male and female he created them. And we discovered that this image, like a brand upon the soul of a human or God’s signature on his masterpiece, gives humans tremendous value. Then we asked: how valuable? Here is the answer. They are worth the life of Jesus.
God the Son was there at creation, saying, let us make mankind in our image. So when he looks at a human and sees that image, and sees that sin has stolen them away, it grieves him. That is why he came to this earth and took on human flesh — to look like another image bearer, and to do what we could not do.
In Genesis 3 we watch Adam and Eve sin. When they did, sin entered the created order and tried to scratch out God’s brand, tried to blur it, tried to erase it. And sin did a serious number on it. But it could not eliminate it. God can still see his signature on human beings, and he knows: that one is mine. So because he loves what he made, Jesus willingly came to pay the penalty we should have paid, in order to begin restoring the image of God within us — so that we might love like Jesus loved and live like Jesus lived.
In week two we saw that the image of God also means we belong to God. If it is a brand, or a signature, it declares ownership. But when Adam and Eve sinned, it was as though sin stole us away from God. So Jesus came and purchased us back. By dying on the cross he redeemed us from sin.
Which means, as we saw in 1 Corinthians 7, that you are now doubly God’s. If you follow Jesus, you were created by God and purchased by God. You cannot simply do whatever you want with your body and your mind. You belong to him.
And that is not oppression. It is freedom. Sin is what kept you trapped and enslaved. Jesus came to free you. So the very best place you can possibly be is with your life given to God, letting him be your owner and master.
Putting the Two Together
This week I want to take what we saw in week one — humans are valuable — and combine it with what we saw in week two — we belong to God. Together, those two truths show us how to interact with our fellow image bearers.
I think a lot of people have an innate sense of both of these truths. But they get them twisted.
They recognize that the imago Dei is valuable, but instead of seeing the value in others, they focus entirely on their own value, and live a deeply self-focused life. Or they see the value in others as long as those others look like them, sound like them, vote like them, dress like them, eat the same food, and watch the same movies. Those people have value. Anyone different? Not so much.
And they know we belong to God and therefore cannot do whatever we want — but they want the right to tell others what to do. Here is how you should vote. Here is how you should dress. Here is how you should worship. Meanwhile, for themselves: well, I am valuable, God loves me, I can do whatever I want.
Nobody puts that into words, but you can read it in their behavior: I am going to tell you what to do, but don’t you dare tell me what to do.
That is not the route we are taking. I am going to challenge you to see the imago Dei in others and to recognize how valuable they are. And if you follow Jesus, that means God gets to tell you what to do — and what he wants is for you to live like Jesus lived and love like Jesus loved. Which means treating people very differently than you might want to. It means showing love, showing respect, extending grace and kindness even to people who look different, sound different, vote different, and dress different.
The Text: Galatians 6:1–10
“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load… And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
Before we work through it, I want to take you on a short detour to Revelation, because it sets up everything Paul is saying here.
A Detour Through Revelation
In Revelation 4, the Apostle John is given a vision of heaven, and he starts describing everything he sees and hears. He is blown away by it. Then in chapter 5 he sees God the Father on the throne holding a scroll, and somehow John knows this scroll is enormously important — and there is no one worthy to open it. Not the angels. Not the elders. Certainly not John. So John begins to weep. Someone has to open this thing.
That is when an angel nudges him and says, essentially: stop crying. Jesus is here.
When Jesus walks in, the angels and elders break into song. Revelation 5:9 records what they sing to him: “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
Two chapters later, we watch the words of that song come true. Revelation 7:9–10: “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’”
What this means is that heaven will be filled with every spectrum of humanity. Every ethnicity. Every language. Every background. The widest spread you could possibly imagine.
Do not mistake this for universalism — the belief that everyone gets in. Some of us like that idea. God is a God of love, so everybody comes. But then we immediately start ranking again: well, not Hitler. And Stalin was pretty bad. And Pol Pot did some awful things. But everyone else is probably fine.
Did you catch verse 10? Salvation belongs to the Lord and to the Lamb. God owns salvation, which means he can give it to whomever he wants. And who he gives it to is anyone and everyone who puts their faith in Jesus — anyone who believes the Lamb was slain and his blood was shed, who realizes they were created by God and purchased by God. Anyone.
So if you think your ethnicity is superior, you are going to hate heaven. That place will be packed with the widest variety of people you have ever been around, and it will be beautiful — because God created every human in his image and is passionate about them. That is exactly why Jesus told his followers to go and make disciples of all nations. There are people out there bearing his image who need to know that he purchased them through the cross.
Stop Ranking People
If you follow Jesus, you cannot fall for the world’s way of thinking about humanity. Humanity on this earth is constantly ranking people, building hierarchies, sorting out who is in and who is out — the ones with a certain skin tone, who vote a certain way, who listen to a certain kind of music, who go to a certain kind of church.
God wants us to stop, because Scripture says that with God there is no partiality. God does not look at us and think, well, I like these people a bit better because they are from Iowa and Iowa is fantastic. He shows no partiality. In his sight we are equal. We are all sinners in need of a savior. His image is in all of us. He has purchased us, and we come together as the church — this enormous variety of people — as one in Christ.
I was helping out with a community fundraiser recently, and while chatting with someone, this sermon came up. I gave her a quick summary, and she said, Oh, that’s so good. We just need to love everybody. We just need to show kindness.
And all I could think was: it is so much easier to say those words than to do those words.
Because we can sit here and talk about one big world group hug — right up until that person walks into the room. And you know who that person is. It is different for each of you. For some it is their race. For some it is their personality. For some it is what they post on social media. For some it is the crass jokes. For some it is the conspiracy theories they seem to always be spouting.
We all have that person. So it is one thing to stand here and say humans are valuable, Jesus died for them, we need to love them and show respect. But how do you actually get to a place where you can truly respect the imago Dei in someone regardless of their race, their gender, their sexuality, their choices, or their religion?
Here is my answer: be part of a church.
Family Is the Practice Field
When my kids were young and fights broke out — arguments among the girls, actual fights among the boys — we would tell them that the reason God put them in a family was to practice.
Have you ever noticed that the people you are meanest to are the people you are closest to? It is embarrassing, the tone I have used with my wife and my children at times. I would never talk to any of you that way. And those of you who know my wife and my kids know they are wonderful — if you talked to them that way, I would not like you much. I would still respect the imago Dei in you, but I might not want to hang out with you.
So why do I do it? Because home is where the real practice happens. And as we told our kids: if you can figure out how to love unconditionally and show respect right here in this family, you are going to be remarkable out there. People will want to hire you. People will want to be your friend. Churches will want to put you in leadership, because they will sense something in you. And the way to become that person is to practice in your family.
Well, guess what. The day you put your faith in Christ, you joined a family. You are part of the family of God. So if you want to learn how to show love to the world, be part of a family — because a healthy church gives you a glimpse of what we just saw in Revelation 7.
A healthy church is diverse. Diversity of ages. Diversity of income. Diversity of political views. Diversity across the board. A healthy church reflects the community around it — and if that community has racial differences, a healthy church will have them too, because it is not about being homogeneous and uniform. Why would we want to be part of something completely uniform here and then arrive in heaven to find something completely different? I think we are supposed to bring a little bit of heaven to earth, not just escape earth to get to heaven.
If we can practice this here, you are going to be amazing out there.
Back to Galatians 6
And that is exactly what Paul is getting at. Look at verse 10, where he sums up the whole section: “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone” — to all image bearers, everyone — “and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
Paul knows that if you can figure out how to love and respect the people in your church family, the ones you are closest to, you will figure out how to do it out there. Because you might say, out there is full of sinful people — well, that is precisely what the church is made of. Sinful people. It is just that most of us have figured out that our sin requires Jesus.
Now let us walk back up to verse 1: “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
The American church is terrible at this
When I read verse 1, my first thought is that we as the American church are just awful at gentle restoration. What we actually do is get rid of people — let some other church deal with their sin. Or we ignore it: not that big a deal, let us cover this up, because if word gets out people might think badly of our church. Or we go on social media and blast them, and try to get them canceled in the court of public opinion.
Paul is calling us to something entirely different. Restore them, gently. And he explains how.
This is addressed to a church family
Notice he says brothers — and the Greek there is general, meaning brothers and sisters. He is speaking to a church. Do not take this as license to go outside the church family and start telling people that what they are doing is bad and sinful. They do not need to correct their life; they need Jesus. So show them the love of Christ. Serve them. Love them. Share the gospel and live it out. And then, if they put their faith in Jesus, you can begin to explain what God desires for them — that our culture will tell them one thing but God wants to free them from those things so they can find real joy in Christ. That is when you can begin to help.
“Caught” is a strong word
“If anyone is caught in any transgression” does not mean we all become the sin police. You do not report to the elders that you caught so-and-so in a lie and think we need to throw them out. We are all sinners. We all fall short. We are all in need of a savior. This is not about someone having a rough day and saying something they should not have.
Think of it this way: someone is out walking through life and sin runs up, catches them, and traps them. That is what “caught” means here.
“You who are spiritual” means a level of maturity
There is a maturity requirement to this work, and Paul spells it out in verses 3 through 5.
First, the mature person is humble. “If anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” You have to have an accurate view of yourself.
Second, “let each one test his own work.” If you have been created by God and purchased by God, then what you do should align with the heart of God. Are you in sync with him? If not, your focus needs to be Christ — turn to him, let his grace wash over you, let it become the center of your identity. But if your walk with him is in alignment with God’s heart, that will humble you. And now you are in a position to go to someone else.
Third, “then his reason to boast will be in himself alone.” Paul is not saying you should strut around admiring how spiritual you are. The Greek carries the sense of not in regard to another. In other words, you are not to live your life in a way that ranks everyone else and concludes, look how much more spiritual I am than them, so clearly I am the one who should go help. Your comparison is not to them. Your comparison is to God — and there you fall enormously short. You need Christ. You need the Holy Spirit working in you. And as he works humbly in you, your heart becomes burdened by the things that burden Christ’s heart. Then when you see a brother or sister in sin, you want to help — not because you see them as beneath you, but because they are equal with you, one in Christ.
Fourth, verse 5: “For each will have to bear his own load.” Some people use this verse as an excuse never to let anyone help them. That is not the point — verse 2 just said to bear one another’s burdens. Keep it in context. He is talking about restoration. If you live selfishly, you will probably end up caught in sin, and the church’s energy will have to go toward gently restoring you. But if you live focused on Christ, going hard after him, you will not want to be caught in that sin — and now the church’s energy is free to restore others. And you get to be part of that work.
“Keep watch on yourself”
This is why maturity matters. Verse 1 warns you to keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. It is a disaster if you go to help someone caught in their sin and get caught in the same sin yourself.
I know a man who came to know Jesus out of the bar scene. He escaped that world and started growing in Christ, and his heart began to ache for his old friends. So he went back, trying to help them — and instead of drawing them out into Christ, he got pulled right back into alcohol. It became a burden. He was the one caught.
I will readily admit that naming someone’s sin is uncomfortable. I did not enjoy sitting down with a friend of mine years ago and pointing something out to him. But I loved him. God is now using that man as a missionary overseas. I am not claiming credit for that. All I know is that if I had not loved him enough to sit down and say, here is what I am seeing, he might not be where he is now. My heart was to see him free. I did not want him under the shackles of alcohol. I wanted him under the lordship of Jesus. And now he is, and he is helping other people find Jesus and follow him.
The law of Christ
One more thing from verse 2: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
When God gave the ancient Jews a law, he gave it through Moses, so it became known as the law of Moses — a list of do’s and don’ts. And God’s purpose in giving it was to help them see that they could not do this on their own. That is why we needed Jesus. Jesus fulfilled the law of Moses and established a new law: the law of Christ, a law of grace, a law of love.
That is the motivation here. The goal is not to get everyone into alignment so we all look the same, act the same, and talk the same. The goal is restoring someone who has been caught in sin. And if you learn to love and restore people in here, you will know how to interact with people out there who are caught in sin — because it will not scare you. You will not try to cancel them. You will not ignore them. You will not pretend it does not matter. You will walk in humility, because you will know the love of Christ.
But to live that way out there, we have to do it in here. That is why John, who wrote Revelation, also wrote in 1 John 4: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
And it is why Paul, who wrote Galatians, also wrote in Romans 12:10: “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.”
If we live that way — if we genuinely compete to outdo one another in showing honor — we will not be able to keep people away. People will want to be part of something like that, because they will see and sense and hear the gospel, the presence of God, and his love for them.
Two Ways to Start This Week
Throughout this series I have not wanted this to stay theoretical. So here are two concrete things.
1. Volunteer here
If respecting the imago Dei means practicing inside a church, then start by getting involved. Some of it is simple: ushering, handing out programs at the door, greeting people as they walk in. Some of it is the cafe — what a great way to tell someone they are valuable than to hand them food and coffee. Maybe Sundays do not work and you come in during the week to help clean. Maybe God has gifted you musically and you should be helping lead us in worship.
Because the more you get involved, the more people you get to know. And the more people you know, the greater the opportunity for friction — and for you to learn how to love and work through it. And as you work through it, you become remarkable, and you go change the world.
2. Support a ministry that reaches people different from you
Because of what we saw in Revelation, get involved in something that reaches people unlike you. We currently support three missionary families — a couple planting a church in a violent urban neighborhood in a major American city, where gunshots go off and bullets come through walls and kids cannot safely play at the playground; a family serving in Southeast Asia meeting practical needs among the poor while sharing the gospel and following up with discipleship and church planting in villages around the capital; and a single missionary serving in West Africa.
A Word From West Africa
By God’s grace and sovereignty, that third missionary happened to be with us in person that Sunday, so I let her tell her own story.
She serves on a team whose vision is to see 190,000 disciples made among ten unreached people groups in that country and its neighbor. That is a God-sized vision, and the team pursues it through five projects.
Two are church-planting projects — planting churches and identifying leaders within them who can go plant more churches in villages that have never heard the gospel. Both of those countries are the birthplace of voodoo, and she described a spiritual darkness there that is hard to convey. The Sunday she was with us happened to be the day of the largest voodoo festival in the world, taking place a couple of miles from where she lives, as it has for roughly 350 years.
A third project is a youth camp ministry, because roughly 70 percent of the population is under thirty. They are developing those young people into future leaders and church planters.
A fourth is vocational training. Ministry does not pay well anywhere, and their pastors and church planters were struggling to feed their families — so why not train them as plumbers or electricians, so they can provide for their families and contribute to their churches while serving full time?
The fifth is the deaf project, which is where she works. In that country alone there are upwards of 80,000 deaf people, about one percent of the population, and the team estimates roughly 95 percent of them have received no education of any kind. Many are unable to communicate at all. A great number are born, live an entire life, and die without ever communicating with another person. They are frequently mistreated and neglected, because people do not see the value they carry as image bearers of God.
They are considered an unengaged, unreached people group. So the team partners with a couple of local deaf schools, because without the ability to communicate there is no education, and without education there is no way for the gospel to spread among them.
She told us about her sign language teacher, a man born deaf who has become one of her favorite people in the world. As their conversations deepened, she noticed he kept saying, I love being deaf. For a long time she did not have the courage to ask why, knowing how difficult the deaf situation is there.
When she finally asked, he told her: You are a hearing person, so you hear noise constantly — dogs barking, the radio playing, voices coming at you all day. It must be a lot. It must be distracting. But I am deaf. And I believe God made me deaf so that his voice would be the only voice I would ever hear in my life.
That is a man who understands he was made in God’s image, and who understands other people’s value because they were made in God’s image too.
She also showed us two eleven-year-old boys who just started school, learning sign language and communication for the very first time. One of them does not yet fully grasp the concept that he is deaf, let alone that there is a God who created him. Her prayer is that one day he will be like her teacher — understanding that he bears the image of God, that he has that value, and that he can treat others the same way.
She asked for prayer for more workers, because the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few — and especially for someone to join her in the deaf ministry, since she is currently working it alone. And she asked prayer for the new believers, including some children who gave their lives to the Lord at a deaf camp that summer, which she called the greatest joy she has ever felt.
But the Goal Is Not to Be Like Her
Maybe your application this week is to support that work directly. But here is the thing: our goal is not to mimic what she has done, whether that means moving overseas or moving across the state. She heard God’s call and applied it in West Africa. That is wonderful.
Our goal is to be like Jesus. Jesus gave himself, coming to this earth to reach the imago Dei. He wants to see it restored. If we are going to live like Jesus lived and love like Jesus loved, he is the model. He is who we go after.
So that is my last plea. Seek after Christ. Let him work deeply in you. And as you become the spiritually mature person who can love the people right here, he can send you out there — whether out there is your workplace, your school, or the other side of the world.
Come to the Table
Father, make this church family a place where your grace is known, where your grace is experienced, and where your grace is what motivates and compels us — so that we would genuinely go and love people. Keep us from falling into the world’s way of thinking, building hierarchies, ranking some people as better than others, or worse, thinking we are better than someone else. Help us see the value in every human, regardless of race, ideology, or religion.
Work so deeply in us that we become like Christ, carrying your love to people, so that image bearers whose image is still marred and distorted might begin to be restored through him — the way those children on the other side of the world were a month ago. Let us see that happen right here, among our friends, in our circles.
None of us is foolish enough to think we can individually change the entire world. Only you can do that, Jesus. But you can use us to change the world for one person. So who is that one? Who are you sending us to? How can we be a blessing at school, at work, in our neighborhoods, even in our own homes?
We practice open communion. This table is open to you if you profess Jesus as Lord and Savior — if at some point you gave your life to him, understanding that he died on a cross for the forgiveness of your sins and rose again from the dead, and that you have been created by God and purchased by God. When you take the bread, you are recognizing the body of Jesus, broken from the whipping to the crown of thorns to the nails to his last breath. When you peel back the cup, that is his blood, shed for the forgiveness of your sins. He had you in mind when he went to that cross.
If you are here and you are not a follower of Jesus, I am genuinely glad you came. We started this church for you, and we want to help you understand this life-changing gospel. But if you are not there yet, if you still have questions, I would ask you to respectfully not come to the tables. We are not about appearances here. Stay where you are and have a conversation with God. No one is going to judge you for staying seated.
And if you are a follower of Jesus who realizes right now that you are caught in some transgression — maybe coming to the elements is part of your confession. Or maybe what you need is to stay right where you are. Come and get the elements, or stand and sing, or kneel, or sit. This is our chance to go to God and ask what he wants to do in us, so he can do something through us. Let us do this in remembrance of him.
