Christians have changed the world one life and one institution at a time by living out the truth that Jesus is Lord over all life.

• As we have seen how God created human beings in His image and how that image has been corrupted by sin, today we want to understand how Jesus redeems and restores the image of God in us.
• Let’s look at Colossians 1:15.

Jesus: The Image of the

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God

• The first human beings, known as Adam and Eve, were made in the image of God, which meant that they were created to

the glory and the dominion of their Creator as they represented Him to the rest of creation. They were meant to relate to Him and to one another as they fleshed out this image.
• However, we saw last week that, when Adam and Eve

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into sin, that image was corrupted within them. This affected how and if they reflected God to the world, how they related to the world, and how they related to one another.
• As we continue to flesh out the biblical storyline (Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration), we have now arrived at how Jesus redeems and restores the image of God in us.
• Colossians 1:15 | He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
• When God sent Jesus, He did not just send a representative in His image. Jesus is God in the flesh. Humans were made in the image of God to represent God to creation. God sent Jesus in the image of man to redeem and restore how the image of God had been corrupted.

Jesus:

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the Image of God in Us

• This begins with redemption. Jesus came to

human beings from the fallenness of their corruption.
• Ephesians 4:23-24 | and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Jesus is our perfect

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>> He showed us what living out the image of God should truly look like when it comes His relationship with God, His relationship with the rest of Creation, and His relationship with other human beings.
Jesus is our perfect

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>> The perfect righteousness that Jesus earned by perfectly imaging God to the world is given to us and our fallenness and corruption is given to Him.
• When we put our faith in Him, Jesus fills us with the Holy Spirit who is committed to making us look more and more like Jesus. This is called the process of sanctification
• Romans 8:29 | For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
• 2 Corinthians 3:18 | And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
• This means that we go from looking like

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to looking like Jesus (see 1 Corinthians 15:49 and Ephesians 2:10)

This means that we are not just saved

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something, but we are saved

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something.

• We are saved and restored to what it

means to be human beings, relating to our Creator and to His creation in a way that reflects His true image.
• Chuck Colson >> Salvation does not consist simply of freedom from sin; salvation also means being restored to the task we were given in the beginning—the job of creating culture, [namely a culture where God is at the center]…This redemptive goal permeates everything we do, for there is no invisible dividing line between sacred and secular.
• We live out Jesus’ Lordship >> Abraham Kuyper said, “There’s not one square inch in the whole domain of human existence as to which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry out, “Mine.” Therefore, we go into every area and declare that it is His.
• Glenn Sunshine >> [this] means that Christianity is far more than what most people—including most Christians—think of as “religion”… Rather, Christianity is a worldview, a vision of the world and our place in it, where every facet of our life—family, occupation, recreation, relationships, finances, everything—finds its meaning and end in God’s purposes for us and for the world.
• Martin Luther >> the entire world [is] full of service to God, not only the churches but also the home, the kitchen, the cellar, the workshop, and the field of the townsfolk and farmers.

Jesus redeems and restores us to the image of God.

• This is why biblical Christianity reigns

. It is not a list of rules. It is not a dead religion. It is an all-encompassing true story about how life began, how life got disrupted, and how life can be restored. It influences everything, which is why we call it a worldview.
• Chuck Colson >> the Christian worldview is more consistent, more rational, and more workable than any other belief system. It beats out all other contenders in giving credible answers to the great questions that any worldview must answer: Where did we come from? (creation); What is the human dilemma? (fall); and What can we do to solve the dilemma? (redemption). And the way we see the world guides the way we work to change the world (restoration).