Intro

F.A.S – The Sims

Does anyone know what the best selling video game of all time is? Now it’s PUBG, outselling second place, Minecraft, by about 10 million. Back in my day, in the early 2000s before all that newfangled Minecraft, there was one game that stood above all the rest, and I bet you’d never guess what it was. It’s a The Sims. It might seem a bit mundane by today’s standards, but back then it was revolutionary. You could create this entire simulated world inside your computer with all sorts of simulated people. It was pretty exciting, especially for people who don’t really like video games. It was an instant hit, and even today’s version, Sims 4 is wildly popular. So what do you do first with your own little virtual world. Of course the first thing you do in the game is make yourself, right? You have to have some sort of representation in this digital world you’re going to play in. I went ahead and booted up my copy of Sims 4 and decided to make a Sim in my own image. Here he is in all his glory.

In the same way, God created the world and then made something to represent Himself in this new world, humans. We were created by God in His image. This is a huge deal. I mean, think about it. You’re made in the image of the creator of the universe. That’s an astounding thing to think of. Unfortunately, if you’re familiar with the story you know that shortly after humans are created, we goof up. Instead of embracing God’s image we turn from it and try to make a new image for ourselves, something our own. God’s enemy found us and convinced us to take control of our own destiny, eat the fruit, make the world in our own image. We gave up trying to become the image of God to make our own image. Our enemy never stopped trying to pull us away from God. The most powerful way He does this is by separating us from God’s image. Paul even talks about our enemy’s plan in 1 Cor 15:47-49. Check it out.

The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. Like the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; like the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

Ok, so sometimes the Bible gets a bit National Treasure, so let me break this down. There’s these two guys, the man of dust and the man of heaven. The man of dust is Adam, like the first guy who lived. Yeah, remember he kinda messed everything up because he wanted to abandon God’s image and make a new image for himself. The man of heaven is Jesus. You’re probably familiar with him, He’s the son of God and the good guy. What the author of these words, Paul, is saying is that we are caught in a struggle between becoming more like Adam or becoming more like Jesus. Our enemy wants us to be more like Adam, a fallen and broken version of ourselves and less like Jesus, who is the literal image of God. Since then, we’ve struggled to live up to the image of our creator and we’re constantly pulled away from it to see ourselves as something different. That struggle is still happening today with each of us. So how can we understand this struggle and overcome it?

Linking Statement

Here are two ways the world tries to pull us away from God’s image

Body

Proof 1 – Convince us that we can be something better

Explanation

This one seems pretty obvious, right. If our enemy wants to pull us away from the image of God, He simply must convince us that God’s image isn’t the best image for us. If he can convince us that there’s a better image out there for us, a better life we can work towards, then He’s won. It’s exactly what He did in the beginning. He convinced Adam and Eve that by eating the forbidden fruit that they could have a life better than the one God gave them. He tempts us in the same way, right. I mean, you probably won’t ever experience a literal snake slithering up to talk to you, but Satan has his ways of convincing us to abandon God’s image for our own. They’re subtle, but they’re there and before you know it, you’ve fallen for his trap. What exactly does it look like then if you’ve fallen for the trap?

Illustration – Remaking my Sim

Well, let’s take a look back at my Sims. You know, this game can teach us a lot about life. See, video games aren’t a complete waste of time! So, what’s usually the next thing people do when they play the Sims after they create themselves. Well, some people go ahead and make a house. Maybe you add in some of your friends so your sim isn’t so alone, or maybe you add in your crush so you can live out your wildest fantasy by holding their hand. I don’t know if it happens to other people, but eventually I begin to get a bit impatient and start to make a few more tweaks and changes. I’ll hit the create-a-sim again to change a few things to just make my sim a bit more, how should I say, desirable. Might lose a couple pounds, add in a bit of muscle mass, maybe add a few inches to my height, you know this is a video game after all and I can do whatever I want. Maybe change the hair a bit, a few edits to the face and now ta-da!  See, isn’t that a bit more attractive?

Application

There is a problem though, it doesn’t really look like me anymore. Sure, I can’t deny that this sim is much more attractive but they aren’t me anymore. Everything that was me was kinda taken away. This is how the enemy does it. He tells us that there’s a better way we can live, and to be honest it’s hard to argue with him. We can make ourselves into an image that’s attractive, popular, that’s wealthy and successful. I mean, pop open instagram and check out what’s trending. Some airbrushed celebrity with flawless skin. Some influencer posing with their latest super expensive ride. An athlete surrounded by attractive women. It tells us that this sort of life can be ours. We can make ourselves into this worldly image, but the more you begin to look like that the less you end up looking like Jesus. You can have that sort of life where everyone will want you because you’re so attractive, extreme wealth, and to be super popular but to gain it you have to give up what is most precious to you, the very image of God. Just give up everything that makes you you. Our enemy wants you to believe the lie that it’s worth it to give up the image of God for this false one that’s constantly shoved in your face.

Proof 2 – Stops us from seeing others as God’s image

Explanation

That’s only one way that our enemy tries to get you to give up the image of God. If our enemy can’t get you to stop seeing yourself as the image of God then he’ll get you to stop seeing others as the image of God. Often when we read about how we’re the image of God, it’s very focused on us. It’s all about us and it gives us the warm fuzzies to see ourselves as the Image of God. That’s not wrong, though. It should make you feel good to think about it, but how often do you remember that everyone else is also made in the image of God? Being made in the image of God isn’t just about how we see ourselves, it’s also about how we see each other, and how we see others is far more important than you may realize.

Illustration – Standford Prison Experiment

Our perception of others is vital to how we not only treat others but also how we see ourselves. Who are your people? Who are the others? These questions affect your relationships far more than you may understand. They also tell you more about who you are than you realize. This became all to clear to the Psychologist Phillip Zimbardo when he conducted the infamous Standford Prison Experiment. The experiment was meant to see just how much of an effect groups have on how people see themselves and others and the results were so horrific that they changed the landscape of psychology forever. After selecting participants, the experiment started by randomly sorting the students into two different groups, guards and prisoners. The prisoners were first arrested by real police officers while in public and transported to a makeshift prison in the basement of the psychology building at Standford University. Once they arrived, the two groups were given simple instructions to act like prison guards and prisoners. That was it. Zimbardo even placed himself into his experiment as the prison’s warden, told the prisoners that they were there to be punished for their horrible crimes, and then let the experiment run its course. For the next seven days the students would be play out their roles. Things seemed to go normally at first, but early on the second day the prisoners revolted stating they were being treated unfairly by the guards. The guards put down the revolt using fire extinguishers. They then forced the prisoners to strip naked, removed their mattresses, and even punished the instigators of the uprising by putting them into solitary confinement. One of the guards even told another that “these were dangerous prisoners.” They weren’t really though, because they didn’t actually do anything wrong. It was still just an experiment and these were all still just students, but it had only been one day and simply seeing themselves as guards and the others as prisoners had changed the entire way the students understood themselves. The experiment had five more days to go, and it only gets worse from here. The guards began forcing prisoners to do push-ups at random times, restricted their use of the bathroom, forcing them to use a bucket instead. The inhuman treatment became worse and worse. Two of the prisoners were so deeply abused that they suffered mental breakdowns and were let out of the experiment early. On the fifth day of the experiment, the prisoners were allowed to have family visit. Their parents were so horrified about what they heard that many began talking to lawyers. Zimbardo’s fellow psychologists even visited the prison are were horrified by the experiment. They even said that they didn’t recognize their friend. The power of group identity was so strong that it even Zimbardo, the psychology professor was unable to escape it. His perception of the students as prisoners had led he himself to treat them differently. The experiment was so brutal that Zimbardo ended the experiment one day early. This experiment was so notorious that it changed ethics in psychology forever to ensure no experiment like it would ever occur again.

Application

For as terrible as the Standford Prison experiment was, it was overall a success. It showed the world the power of group identity. If we are able to see someone else as different than ourselves, then we can easily find excuses to treat them in inhuman ways. This theory of group identity explains some of the worst ways that humans treat each other. What the Nazis did during the holocaust is largely attributed to the Nazis seeing the Jews as outsiders and themselves as superior. Our enemy knows that he can use this to control us. If he can’t convince us to abandon the image of God then he’ll try to get us to not see God’s image in others. Because if we fail to recognize others as God’s image bearers, then we fail to recognize God’s image in ourself. How we treat others reflects on ourselves. We can’t see ourselves as the image of God unless we also recognize everyone else is, too. Our best friend, our parents, our teachers, our class mates, those who bully us, who spread gossip about us, those we look down on, they all bear the image of God.

Conclusion

Main Point: Live up to God’s Image

Application

All of this is an elaborate plan to stop you from living up to God’s image. To prevent you from realizing that the greatest part of your identity is that you bear the image of God. You have to embrace that image and pursue becoming more like God, to live up to the image of your creator.

But you can’t live up to God’s image if you’ve fallen for the trap of pursing a worldly image for your life. Some of you have abandoned chasing after the image of God so you can make yourself into this fake worldly image. You want the life that you see presented to you on instagram and tik tok. You want the wealth, the success, the attention. You want to be desired, to be attractive, you want to be popular, so you chase after this fake manufactured life you see online. The thing is you will never make it. You will never be good enough for that sort of life because that life is a lie. These people airbrush their bodies, photoshop in the flawless skin, they have the expensive car but are empty inside, they have all the money they’d ever want but can never trust that anyone actually wants them or do they just want their money. You’re stuck comparing all of your behind the scenes with their manufactured fake life. It’s an impossible standard that you’ll never be able to reach, but it will destroy you as you try. You’ll develop an eating disorder to try to match that image, you’ll back stab and drive away your friends to try and get ahead, you’ll push yourself harder and harder and you’ll never make it and you’ll end up hating yourself. That’s because you’re not supposed to live a life like that. That’s not who you are.

But who you are is not just how you see yourself, but how you see others. It’s easy to see what makes us different. We might go to different schools, have different skin, go to different churches, have different friends, or have different interests. They get everything they want, AirPods, the newest iPhone, and my parents can’t get me that stuff. They’re terrible people, who bully others, never pay attention, and are always in trouble, and I try my hardest to behave, we’d never get along. They always have the nicest clothes and are so attractive and people always want to be around them, but I have such a hard time making friends, besides we all know she’s just so fake, we’re too different. They’re clearly not a Christian because everyone can see they’re a horrible person, so what could we possibly have in common. All these things remind us of just how different we are, but nothing compares to what we all share. No matter what makes us different, we are all made in the image of God, and what can compare to that? That very fact can changes everything and the only way we can live up to the image of God is if we recognize that image in others.

So who are you really? When you looked into your mirror this morning, what were you really looking at?I’ll tell you what you’re really looking at. You may see a pimple or a scar that you obsess over. How you’ve always thought your nose was too big. You look at yourself and you just feel so empty. You wish you could be better, you want to be stronger, smarter, you’re just not who you want to be. All you can see if how you just don’t measure up. But that’s not who you really are. Who you really are is a divine creation who bears the image of God. That’s your true identity. You’re made in the image of the creator of the universe, the master of everything, the ruler of all. You bear His image. The best thing is that it’s not something you have to grow into or work to become, it’s just who you are. Why would we ever want to be anything else? It’s time to stop try to be something you’re not and instead live up to who you really are, God’s image.