“I Am Created By God” Gen. 1: 26-31; Eph. 2: 1-10
On my Dad’s side of the family, there are folks with great carpentry, masonry, and home building skills. They can take the wood, the cement, and other materials and make houses, barns, and fantastic things. When I was little, I decided I would try my hand at this as well. So, I took some old wood scraps, some plaster, a hammer, and nails. Before I go further, this was the point in life that I learned the old phrase, “You can do and be anything you want,” is quite true in theory, but might not necessarily work out in practice.
I hammered, plastered, and molded this small monstrosity of a something while dad was off working somewhere else. I started to pick it up and the whole thing fell apart…except for what I had accidentally nailed to the floor which thankfully had not been carpeted yet. I learned two things. First, I could follow Jesus in every way but that carpentry part. Second, though God gives us all creative skills, we are not all meant to be the master creator that God is. When we talk about creation, there are two things we must remember: we are created in the image of God, and we are God’s masterpiece—wanted by God—and created anew.
There are times we forget the true majesty and amazing power of God’s creation. The story becomes part of a Sunday School lesson, or a childhood Bible reading. But the Genesis story of creation gives us a very clear picture of just how fantastic creation is. Verse 27 says, “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God, he created them.” When God first created us, we were made fully and completely in God’s image. That’s no small thing. Now, you may be wondering about the whole woman taken from a man’s rib part of the story. That’s in chapter 2 of Genesis. The Book of Genesis tells the creation story in different detail in both chapters one and two. Here, we see the boldest statement: humankind is made in God’s image. All of us…every single one of humankind.
As part of that creation, we were made to have a special relationship with God. Verse 26 says we were made to be like God. We are also told that we are to be in charge of God’s creation—stewards of what God has created. Not only are we made exactly as God desired and imagined us to be, like God himself, we are vested with the call to care for God’s creation here on earth to the best of our abilities.
So, what went wrong? Where did this story of creation and perfection go off the rails? Ephesians tells us that this tipping point was when we became burdened with disobedience and sin. Many of us here in church have followed God for years, attended church weekly, read our Bibles. And yet, I’m willing to bet we can still remember a time when the desires of our hearts were drawn to something a little less holy…perhaps a bottle, perhaps a drug, a disillusionment, a bitterness or pity and anger. There are so many things in the human experience that can cloud the miraculous relationship we have with God. I bet, though, in the back of our minds, and even as I say it, we all have the one or two things we can think of which make us swallow a bit hard because they weren’t our finest moments.
In all of those moments, and all of the subsequent relapses, God’s love always continues to pursue us, for God created us in his image. There’s more to that idea. If God created us in his image, it means that God wanted us, perfectly imagined and created us exactly as he, the master of creation, wanted us to be, and not a single mistake was made in how God envisioned us. Now bear in mind, I’m not necessarily talking about your physical appearance. God has many appearances, including wind, fire, a blinding presence, a human or angel, and even a burning bush. What’s important is that God fashioned who you are, your mind, your heart, and your soul in God’s image.
There’s a hope in knowing that God wanted us, calls us, and even in our ugliest moments of life, never stopped pursuing us. We can turn our backs all day long, stop believing, nose-dive off the high board into the pool of sin to wallow around all day long, but God never stops calling to us, pulling at us to come home, encouraging us to be yielded to God’s holy will, or convicting us if we truly need it. The point is, no matter how far we run or tune out, God never gives up on us and will wait until we are willing to come back to our Creator.
Because of that love of God, we are told that God “has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago,” in verse 10 of Ephesians. When I made my spackled, wood-glued, nailed to the floor monstrosity, I was so frustrated by its failure that I threw it out in the garbage and swore never to do anything like that again. God, however, got the last laugh after I bought an 80-year-old house in need of constant repair. But then God knows best, as we see even as creation failed, God offered a way to be created a new and have that broken relationship restored—to be made whole again with God, the Creator who loves us.
God sees us as a masterpiece. Ephesians 2:10 tells us such, “For we are God’s masterpiece,” and the only part of creation made in God’s image. What does this mean for us? Just as God created us anew, we should be willing to create anew in our lives. I think for many people church is seen as a requirement or burden. We’ve always done it. We are expected to “do church.” Perhaps for some of us our parents drug us to Sunday School, church, fellowship time, evening service, youth group, Wednesday Bible Study and the gossip session (I mean prayer circle Thursdays).
Maybe church and faith can be created anew for us. A friend’s church decided that once a month, they would “create anew” in ways that made a difference. So, they started on that one Sunday meeting in their fellowship hall to sing and pray over a service project even as they worshiped. The first month they put together backpacks for the schoolkids. Another month they did gift bags for a nursing home up the street. All the while they were serving, they sang hymns, prayed, read scripture, and at the end shared communion before going home. Soon, those services were the best attended that they had—filled with ministry to the church and mission to the community around them.
Sometimes faith takes a bit of imagination. I’ve heard the hymn “Amazing Grace” hundreds of times now in my life and ministry. You would think, by now, it would be old and tired. Yet every time that fourth verse rolls around, “When we’ve been there then thousand years…” I feel a knot in my throat and need a deep sigh to get through. It’s a reminder that we can still feel God’s soft, gentle voice calling to each and every one of us, who are made in God’s image and created anew by his love and sacrifice.
I may have made a mess of my own creation and tossed it out in the trash, but God is the master creator and Christ is the merciful redeemer. There is no trash with God—only something to be salvaged and refurbished. As we give up on our own way (which usually leads down the sinful path anyway) and let God have control, God promises we will be created anew and reimagined into the masterpiece God designed us to be. Praise be to God—the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/508945933578252