Who Do You Think You Are?

Delivered Sunday, May 22, 2011

Genesis 1:26-31: Matthew 5:13-16

Who are you? There are a lot of possible answers to that question. If some one comes up to you at a social gathering and asks, “Who are you?” you probably would respond with your name. But that is not who you really are. That is just a label. Your parents could have called you by some other name, and you would still be you. You could even change your name, if you want, but it would change not change who you are. Some might respond to the question with their occupation. “I am a doctor or nurse or lawyer or artist or mechanic or teacher or pastor.” That sense of identity can be very deeply ingrained in us. I identity myself to others as a pastor – specifically as the pastor of the Federated Church, just as I identified myself previously as the pastor of First Baptist Church and before that Calvary Baptist Church. I took time off from being a pastor for all of 2010 and I had an identity crisis of sorts. If I was not a pastor, then who was I? It was a real issue for me. It is an issue for people who find themselves suddenly unemployed or retired. If your identity is wrapped up in your profession or occupation, then who are you when you no longer do that?

To the question, “Who are you?” many of us respond with our family connections. We identify ourselves as someone’s spouse, partner, parent or child. We find a sense of identity in our biological, marital or social relationships. But a little bit of thinking will reveal that if we had made some different decisions in life all those relationships might be different. Would we still be us then? The same is true with our cultural or national identity. It is not hard to imagine that we could have been born in another culture, which could mean being born into another language, worldview and religion. We also tend to identify ourselves by age; we see ourselves as young or old. But our age changes more quickly than anything else. It seems like I was 21 only a few years ago. It feels like yesterday that I first came to be pastor this church, but I was 31 years old then. Both of my sons are older than that now. So if we identify ourselves as a teenager, young adult, middle age or a senior (as I am identified these days when I am given the senior discount at Dunkin Donuts) that is the most temporary of all identities.

Is there an identity that does not - and cannot - change over time? That is what we want to know. Are we these bodies? Every cell in our body is replaced every seven years. I have had eight different bodies and I am working on my ninth now. Unfortunately these bodies are not getting any better! If we are not identified with our bodies, then who are we? That is what I want to explore today. Just to warn you, it is going to take more than one Sunday even to scratch the surface of this question. Who are you? The scriptures give some answers to this.

I. First, you are the creation of God. Just so you know, I do not get into the Creationism-Evolution debate. That is a complete waste of time in my opinion. Creation is a theological doctrine, not a biological one. The doctrine of Creation tells us who made us, not how we were made. If you want to discover how we were created you look in the fossil record and human DNA. If you want to discover who created you, you look in the Bible and into your own soul.

A little girl asked her mother: “How did the human race begin?” The mother answered, “God made Adam and Eve; they had children; and so was all mankind made.” Two days later the girl asked her father the same question. The father answered, “Many millions of years ago there were small mammals, monkey-like animals, from which the human race evolved.” The confused girl returned to her mother and said, “Mom, how is it possible that you told me the human race was created by God, and Dad said man came from monkeys?' The mother answered, 'Well, Dear, it is very simple. I told you about my side of the family, and your father told you about his.'

I am telling you about both sides of the family. We are the creation of God. I admit that this is a statement of faith. We cannot prove there is a God or that he created the universe; I have dealt with that in a previous sermons. If you don’t believe in a Creator God, then you will answer this question differently. Without God we are simply biological organisms. We are alive here and now, but one day we will die, and cease to exist, and that is it. So we make the best of it for the few decades we exist. Maybe that scenario is true. But my experience – and the testimony of scripture – is that there is a God and we are God’s creation.

If this is true, then that means our identity is connected to our Creator. Who I am is who I am in relation to my Maker. That is the one relationship that will not change. All our other relationships can change. Spouses can die or leave, the same with parents or children or friends. But God does not die. He does not leave us or forsake us. So the essence of who we are is that we are the creation of God. To me that is very profound and important. It means that the source of my being is found in God. Paul Tillich speaks of God as the Ground of Being, which I find very helpful. Our bodies, according to scripture come from the physical ground; they are composed of water and minerals. But our identity beyond our physical form comes from the ground of Being. We come from God. Our Source is in God. If you want to know who you are, then you look to God because only in relation to God can we find the answer. We are the creation of God.

          II. Second, the Scriptures say that we are the image of God. To put it more precisely we are created in the image of God. That is what the Bible tells us in the creation account in the first chapter of Genesis. (1: 26-27) “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness….” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

What does it mean to say we are made in the image of God? It means that there is a resemblance. When a sculptor makes an image of a person there is a physical resemblance. When a photographer captures the image of a person, there is a resemblance between the person photographed and the image in the photograph. Often I can tell who someone’s parents are just by looking at them. We say of children that they are the “spitting image” of their mother or father.

God has no physical body, so we don’t look like God physically. He is Spirit, so it means that we look like him spiritually. It also means that we are spirit as well as body’ we are more than body. I am going to get into this more next week when I talk about the Biblical understanding of human beings as body, soul, and spirit. But today I just want to get across the idea that when we say we are made in the image of God, it means that we resemble God in some way. When we ask the question “Who am I?” we have to go beyond the physical, and even the psychological, to the spiritual. The essence of who we are is spiritual. Our bodies will die; therefore we are not our bodies. We are spirit, made in the spiritual image of God.

Another way of looking at the concept of the image of God is that we are created as reflections of God. When you look in the mirror, you see your image. It is not you; it is just an image of you. Likewise we are the image – the reflection of God; human flesh reflecting God. It is almost like we are mirrors, and the spiritual life is like Alice stepping through the looking glass. We are designed to be reflections of God. Whom are we reflecting God to? We are designed to reflect God to others. The meaning and purpose of your life is to reflect God. I think that is what Jesus had in mind when he said, “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. ¹⁶ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Do we reflect God to other people? Do we reflect God’s light like mirrors reflect light. The problem is that our mirrors are pretty dirty. We are not very godly. God’s image in us is obscured and hidden. A mirror covered in dust does not reflect light very well. Spiritual practice and disciplines are designed to brush the dust off the mirror, to wash the glass in the water of the Holy Spirit so that the light of God can shine, can reflect from us – so that people can praise God. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

We are also designed to reflect God back to God. When we face God, then God sees himself in us. Worship is when we reflect God back to God. That is what we are doing here today. This worship service is not a performance. This is not theatre. Neither is it merely a social gathering. This is not a self-help or group therapy session. We are not here to see what we can get out of it. That is what some people assume a church worship service is about. If they do not get what they want out of it, then they don’t come. But we are not here for ourselves; we are here for God. We are not the audience; God is the audience. Someone asked me before church on Easter Sunday, if I ever was afraid that no one would show up on Sunday. I replied, “No” because I am not leading this service for you; I am doing it for God. God is the audience; a worship service is service to God. We are here to reflect God back to God. That is what it means to glorify God. The first article of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the most famous statement of the Christian faith ever written in the English language says, “Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” The word glory in the Bible describes light shining. We are designed to be shining lights; we are to shine the image of God but to God and to others.

That is the way I picture heaven. The most frequent spiritual questions that people ask me have to do with heaven. People want to know if there really is a heaven, and if they will recognize people in heaven, and things like that. People say that when they get to heaven they plan to ask God some questions, or they will spend time chatting with family, friends, and famous personages. I don’t think heaven is like that. I picture heaven as facing God and perfectly reflecting God. I am not going to be asking God questions; my soul is going to be filled with God. During Easter week Time magazine devoted its cover story to a new book by Rob Bell, pastor at Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids. The book is causing a great debate in evangelical circles. It is on the topic of hell - whether there really is a hell, and who will be there, and how can anyone be happy in heaven knowing that people are in hell, and how could a loving God assign anyone to an eternal torment, and so forth.

My initial reaction to the whole debate is that if we are asking questions like this, we are facing in the wrong direction. Face God and the question will seem irrelevant. What we believe or don’t believe about afterlife does not make any difference to what really is after life. We are going to get it wrong anyway. The apostle Paul says in the famous love chapter of I Corinthians 13, “whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part. ¹⁰ But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. … For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.” Our understanding is imperfect now, our best attempts at theology distort the reality of God ‘s Truth. Let’s not waste our time on such matters; they will resolve themselves. Instead be who you are. Be the image of God, mirrors of God, reflections of God. Reflect the love of God.

Scripture says that Jesus was the perfect image of God. We were made in the image of God, but it says that Jesus is the image of God. There is a difference. Colossians 1:15 says, “He is the image of the invisible God.” Hebrews 1 says, “¹ God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, ² has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; ³ who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person.”

III. There is one last understanding of who we are which I want to convey. We are the words of God. The creation story of Genesis 1 pictures God as speaking the world into existence. He simply said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And he simply said, “Let Us make man in Our image,” and we were created. We were spoken into existence. That means that we are words of God. Again, Jesus is spoken of as the eternal Word (with a capital W) who was not created, but who is the Creator. As made in his image, we are words from God. This means that our nature is to convey God. Words are meant to communicate; it they don’t do that then they are not fulfilling their purpose. As the words of God, we are meant to communicate God to the rest of Creation; That is the real meaning of having dominion. It doesn’t mean that we have the right to abuse the earth for our pleasure. It means that we pass on God’s love and care and compassion to his creation.

Who are you? You are the creation of God. You are the image of God. You are the words of God. Be who you are. In the preface to the book “The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell On His Life And Work,” the editor Phil Cousineau quotes from an epitaph on a grave in Boothill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona. It says, "Be what you is, 'cos if you be what you ain't, you ain't what you is." It is not very good English, but it is good advice to end this sermon: be what you is.