If you are going to start a sermon series on being human, then it would be best to start at the beginning. And the first words of the Bible are found in Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God . . .
And that’s where I want to begin this morning. In the beginning. With God.
Now, I know that not everyone here today believes in the literal 7 days of creation or that God created humanity as a part of that process.
Personally, I hold a traditional view of creation, but I also recognize there are faithful Christians who have wrestled with this scripture in different ways.
Now am I going to put a date on the creation process and argue for a young earth?
Nope, I don’t know when it happened, and frankly that doesn’t bother me, and it doesn’t minimize what I believe.
I have stood at the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza and I have wandered inside the circle of stones at Stonehenge and I realize that people have been around for a really long time. Which only deepens my sense of awe at a God who works across time.
And for me, I don’t need to have God fit neatly into my timeline. I only have to believe that God is the source of all life.
I have discovered that when it comes to creation that most people will align with one or two trains of thought.
In 1802 Anglican Priest William Paley, published a book by the title of “Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity.” And in it he argued that if you found a watch on a beach, you’d assume it had been made by a watchmaker, and not by nature. Therefore, the complexity of the universe implies a divine creator.
3000 years before Paley wrote his book, that thought inspired King David to write these words in Psalm 139:13–14 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
The opposite side of that argument was presented by Richard Dawkins in his 1986 book, “The Blind Watchmaker.” In his book, Hawkins argues that natural selection is the mechanism capable of producing immense complexity without any foresight, plan, or purpose.
In effect, Dawkins, an atheist, maintains that all this happened by chance, without the need of a higher power.
For me, believing that all of this is ultimately purposeless requires more trust than I’m able to place in chance alone.
Over the next couple of months, the staff is going to tackle the subject, “What it means to be Human.”
And we aren’t the first to ask that question, King David wrote in Psalm 8:4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?

We’ve just come out of the Christmas season, where we celebrated the fact that God interrupted time to come to earth as a human. But how often do we stop and ponder exactly what that means?
Last Sunday, the staff looked into the book of Philippians to see what it meant for Jesus to be human.
We read in Philippians 2:7 Instead, he (Jesus) gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.
But the question remains, if Jesus was born as a human being, then what does it mean to be a human being? Is it something each of us can define for ourselves? Or is it more than simply our own opinion?
If we want to understand what it means to be human, we can’t start with what we do, or what we think; we have to start with who we are created to be.
Which takes us back to the beginning. Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. . . .”
So, let’s start with Humans Were Created by God.
Perhaps, you are a little confused by the plural statements here. “Let us make human beings in our image.”
It’s here we get our first glimpse of the triune nature of God. What we refer to as the Trinity.
Often when we think of the creation process, we simply default to God the Father. We sometime think of Him, singular as the creator. But let’s poke around a little more and see where we arrive.
Let’s go back to the beginning, where we read in Genesis 1:1–2 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
So, we start with the Spirit of God being present in the creation account as well as the Father.
Now, let’s go to the Gospel of John, when Jesus, the son is introduced and we read in John 1:1–4 In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone.
As I said earlier, when we think of the creation process, we often default to God the Father, but let’s not forget that it was God in his entirety, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who created all things.
And understand that when we talk about creation, including the creation of humans, we are talking about creating something from nothing.
It’s not like when we create something fancy for dinner. You know, when we take a variety of ingredients and combine them to make something different. Butter, milk, pasta and the cheese packet.
And it’s not like building a house where you start with all the different materials that will be needed to build a home.
Sometimes we speak in awe at the birth of a child and think of it as a woman and a man creating a new life.
But in each of those illustrations, they start with something. You have cooking ingredients. You have building materials. You have two cells.
The Hebrew word used in the creation account is bara and it is unique. This word was not used to describe the process of making something from something. Instead, this was the process of creating everything from nothing.
It’s like the story of the scientist who finally figured out the secret of creating life and so he challenged God to a man-making contest. God agreed and told the scientist he could go first.
The scientist bent over and picked up a handful of dirt. To which God said, “Oh no, you have to make your own dirt.”
So, the Bible starts with these words, Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God . . .
And while we might not be able to understand or comprehend the concept of there being nothing at one time and then everything being created out of that nothing. That is more a reflection of our limited understanding and not of the nature of God and the universe.
And perhaps you’re thinking, “I can’t get my head around that, so I can’t believe it.” But the concept of God’s pre-existence and His creating the universe from nothing requires no more faith than believing that it all just happened from nothing.
On Christianity.com we read, “While the details might cause some glossy eyes and distracted minds, it is significant to note that the Bible includes the only cosmology that records the origin of the space-time-matter continuum in both ancient paganism and modern naturalism.”
There was nothing, and then there was everything.
But God wasn’t just responsible for the creation of the universe. Listen to the words of Job in Job 33:4 For the Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
Did you catch that? If the Spirit of God made Job, and the breath of the Almighty gave Job life, then the same applies to each one of us.
Job’s statement is a reflection of Genesis 2:7 Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.
In the Beginning, the one who created the universe created you.
The next time you are thinking that you aren’t good enough, or smart enough, or pretty enough, remember it was God who made you and who gave you life.
The very same God who was responsible for the Milky Way and the Northern Lights, and giraffes, made you
That’s like having the architect who designed the Sydney Opera House design and build a garden shed for you.
But humans weren’t just created, let’s keep reading Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us…”
Humans Were Created in God’s Image. Being made in the image of God doesn’t mean that we look like God, or that God looks like us. No two of us look alike.
Not even identical twins are truly identical. My dad was an identical twin, and people would often say they couldn’t tell him and Uncle Clint apart.
But you could. And the older they got, the less identical they became, which is reflected in Abraham Lincoln’s statement, “Every man over forty is responsible for his face.”
Our grandsons are identical twins, and often we will hear people say that they can’t tell them apart. But you can. It’s easy. One of them is better looking than the other one. I just can’t figure out which one that is.
I attended university with my cousin Rob, and one day someone told me that they often mixed us up. Which was really funny, because Rob and I didn’t look anything alike, the only thing remotely similar about us was our last names.
But I told them, it’s easy to tell us apart. One of us is tall and good looking, and the other one is Rob.
John Wesley taught that humans being created in God’s image was threefold. There was the Natural Image, that is, we were created as spiritual beings with understanding, free will and the ability to enter into a relationship with God.

Of course, that image was distorted when humanity rebelled against God, but it is still the image of God. Imagine you had a framed picture of someone, and it was dropped and the glass in the frame shattered. The image underneath the glass would still be there, but it would be distorted because of the fall.
There is the Political Image. Humanity was given the right and responsibility to reign over the natural world.
Thirdly, there was the Moral Image. The moral image wasn’t a capacity or a function, but a relationship with God. It is being filled with the love of God and reflecting that love back to God.
This does not mean human beings are little gods. It means that God intended humans to have a spiritual image. And God only gave this to humanity. His gift did not extend to any other animals He created. Regardless of what you might think of your fur baby, it wasn’t created in the image of God.
In the Wesleyan Bible Commentary, theologian Wilbur Williams writes, “This reveals the multiplicity of God’s unity. Every person in his or her uniqueness is a direct reflection of God. If we could isolate the essential God-given differences in each individual, past, present, and future, and somehow put them all together, we would begin to discover what God ‘looks like.’”
Williams goes on to write, “Each one individually, and every one collectively, came from the one image God had in mind, and He put all of that potential likeness in Adam and Eve.”
But Humans weren’t just made. We were made for something, and that something is found in the next section of our scripture. Let’s keep going.
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”
Humans Were Created with a Purpose
This will eventually be a message all by itself. But, for now it needs to be noted that humans weren’t just created. We were created with a purpose.
We were created to reign over nature, but there is more than that. Our purpose is expanded in Genesis 1:28 Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”
In verse 26, God reveals his plan for humanity, and in verse 28 he directs the first couple to fulfil the plan. First, they were to make more people, and then they were to govern the earth.
When we were called to reign over nature, it’s not as some people would teach, that the world is here for us to do with it as we will.
God’s purpose for humanity was not about dominating nature but caring for what he has given us. It wasn’t about exploiting the world but being responsible for the world. And we will dig into that a little more down the road.
Let’s keep going.
Genesis 1:27 So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Humans Were Created Unique and Distinct. This is one of the great gifts we find in the creation story. Humanity is united in dignity, but diverse by design. It was no accident that there were two of them, one of each. One wouldn’t have been enough, and three would have been too many.
When the creation story is told, we are told that humanity began with two individuals. A male and a female.
They were both created in God’s image, but they were distinct in their identities. Distinct doesn’t mean unequal, incomplete, or opposed—it means intentionally different yet equally bearing God’s image.
God didn’t create two identical humans.
We have friends whose children are fraternal twins. A boy and a girl, and more than once our friend said that she had been asked, “Are they identical?” That’s not the way it works.
Both of her children are fully human. They are fully loved. They are fully complete, and yet they are undeniably different.
The Bible tells us humanity began that way as well.
And while the first couple were both complete in who they were, it required the two of them to fulfil the command to be fruitful and multiply. Neither of them could do that by themselves.
And the wonderful message we have here that is so often missed, is that because we are all descendants of the first couple, the “Image of God” applies to every person regardless of their race or their gender.
Let’s go back to the story, Genesis 1:31 Then God looked over all he had made, and He saw that it was very good! And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day.
God Was Pleased with Humanity
Humanity was the pinnacle of God’s creation, and He was pleased with every facet of His creation.
If you are familiar with the creation account. At the end of each day, we read, “God saw that it was good.”
And the word that was used in the original language, meant that it was fit for its purpose, it was in harmony with God’s nature and was aesthetically pleasing.
But at the end of the sixth day, the day God created humanity, the Bible doesn’t just say that God saw that it was good, but that God saw that it was very good. It is just the addition of one word, but it signifies the full completion of creation, and that only happened with the addition of humans.
And when God created man and woman, he gave them the greatest gift he could and that was the gift of free will, even knowing that they could choose to use that gift to rebel against him.
And from the time the first couple choose to walk away from God, God has pursued them. Why? He could have started over. He could have done an upgrade, and created humanity 2.0, only this time they wouldn’t have free will. They would have to be obedient, and they would have to worship him.
But he didn’t do that because he loved his creation. As a matter of fact, he loved us so much, that he was willing to give up who he was and sacrifice himself for us.
And this is where the story takes a turn.
Genesis tells us that God looked at humanity, male and female, created in His image, given purpose, entrusted with the world and God said, “This is very good.”
But if we’re honest, when we look at the world today, and when we look at ourselves, we know something has gone wrong.
The image of God is still there but it’s been cracked. It hasn’t been erased, but it is distorted.
It is still present, but it is no longer whole.
We were created for relationship with God, with one another, and with creation. Yet we experience broken relationships, fractured communities, and we look around at a world broken by sin.
And here’s the important part: God did not walk away.
The God who said “In the beginning” is the same God who refused to give up when humanity chose another way.
God did not scrap the project.
God did not start over.
God did not create humanity 2.0.
Instead, God pursued the humanity that He loved.
The same God who formed humanity from the dust stepped into the dust.
The Word through whom all things were made became flesh and dwelt among us.
The Creator entered creation, fully human, to restore what had been broken.
And that’s why this table matters.
Communion is not just something we do at the end of a service.
It is a declaration of what it means to be human as God intended.
At this table, we are reminded that:
• We are created by God
• We are loved by God
• And we are worth redeeming to God
This bread tells us that God took on a human body.
This cup tells us that God poured out His life to restore the image we shattered.
When we come to the table, we come not because we are perfect, but because we are created, loved, and being restored.
So, as we prepare to receive Communion this morning, we don’t come as finished products.

We come as people made in God’s image, cracked but not discarded, broken but not abandoned.
And we come trusting that the God who said, “It is very good,” is still at work making all things new, beginning with us.