Mankind’s distinct nature derives from being made in the image of God. As image-bearers, men and women are called to be like God.

Made Like Creatures (But Not Exactly) 

• God is the author of all Creation but Father to some of it (Gen. 1:1; 2:4).
• Look at the change of God’s activity regarding each day’s focal creation:
  • Gen. 1:3 – “Let there be light” (Day 1)
  • Gen. 1:6 – “Let there be an expanse” (Day 2)
  • Gen. 1:9 – “Let the waters be gathered” (Day 3)
  • Gen. 1:14 – “Let there be lights” (Day 4)
  • Gen. 1:20 – “Let the waters swarm…let birds fly” (Day 5)
  • Gen. 1:24 – “Let the earth bring forth living creatures” (Day 6)
  • Gen. 1:26 – “Let us make man” (Day 6)

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,

In the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them (Gen. 1:26-27). 

• God spoke all things into existence, but with people, He got “His hands dirty.”
• God’s creation of Mankind is noticeably different from all other creations.
• The ability to reason make us distinctly different from creatures within the animal kingdom.
• Our culture puts more value on protecting animal eggs than human life.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 

what is man that you are mindful of him,

    and the son of man that you care for him (Psalm 8:3-4)?

Made Like God (But Not Exactly)

Oh come, let us worship and bow down;

    let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! 

For he is our God,

    and we are the people of his pasture,

    and the sheep of his hand (Psalm 95:6-7).

• We are made in the image of God and bear His likeness.
• The Old Testament command to be fruitful and multiply and the New Testament command to make disciples is all about allowing His image, restored upon us, to be seen throughout the world.
• Dignity is deserving of every person marked with the image of God.

This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth (Genesis 5:1-3).

Made Like Each Other (But Not Exactly)  

He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female (Matthew 19:4).

• God made both males and females. 
• God made the genders very similar but also very different.
• Taking away the distinction between genders is not honoring them but actually dishonoring them. 
• Any culture that cannot esteem both genders will see a breakdown of the family and of the nation.
• There are distinctions between males and females, but both share equal dignity.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).

• Each of us is at our best when we become who God has called us to be.

For you formed my inward parts;

    you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your work my soul knows it very well (Psalm 139:13-14).