God Created You In His Image – Part 2 (Genesis 1:26-31)

Valley View Baptist Church                                                                 Pastor Curt Audet

6N656 Route 25                                                                                    February 22, 2026

St. Charles, IL  60174                                                                       vvbcil.com

“God Created You In His Image” Part 2 (Genesis 1:26-31)

#4 in the series Harbors For Our Soul

BI: God designed and created you to know that you are loved by God.

Since 1876 there has been a 78 mile distance between Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Muskegon, Michigan that is rightly considered to be the safest water-way passage across Lake Michigan.  Each year from late Spring into the Fall you can book for your family and your car the scenic cruise-like ship ride across the Lake which occurs three times each day, weather permitting.  For a family such as me, Mineke and Levi, it runs a cool $760.

The western departure point is in Milwaukee Harbor which is protected by a man-made perimeter breakwater wall with just two openings.  One at the center at the mouth of the Kinnickinnic River guarded by the Milwaukee Breakwater Lighthouse built in 1926 and the second south of there which is the ferry entry and exit way “guarded” by the Lightship #57 shipwreck.

The eastern destination point—from my perspective—is the Muskegon Channel a 359’ narrow waterway-off-ramp past the Muskegon Breakwater Lighthouse built in 1851 into Muskegon Lake.  The features of this harbor are often regarded as perhaps the ‘safest harbor’ of all in Lake Michigan.

The ferry operation was initially operated by the Milwaukee and Muskegon Ferry Company. simply aimed to connect Wisconsin and Michigan across Lake Michigan. Since 1876 it has undergone various ownership changes. This ferry route still remains a popular travel option today.  Let’s schedule a ride!

Since 2004 the service is the  HSC Lake Express. This is a high-speed auto and passenger ferry. The Lake Express ship travels safely at a top speed of 34 knots (39 mph) and makes the 78 mile trip three times daily in two and a half hours each time. It is one of the first high-speed-craft catamaran-style ferries which is built upon two hulls of equal size ensuring balance and stability.  Its capacity is 248 passengers, 44 cars and 12 motorcycles.

As I’ve been saying since we began this series on Harbors For Our Soul, every single time a ship is built to be sea-worthy, of course, the goal is to not shipwreck the ship. Ways to avoid becoming a shipwreck statistic in Lake Michigan are well known to us now:

(1) Know where to find the safest harbors.

(2) Get to a safe harbor before storms, winds and visibility conditions deteriorate.

(3) Understand on-ship person-to-person communications

Everyone onboard works together to avoid shipwreck. Notice the screen and safety orange tags on the walls. Identify yourself by your location:

* Notice and point to where the bow (aka, front) of the ship. 

* Notice and  point to the stern (aka, back) of the ship. 

* Yell Starboard! (If you are on the right side of the ship, aka, ‘steering side’).  

* Yell Port!  (If you are on the left side of the aka, ‘loading side’).

Like every ship set in open waters, every single human life conceived in this world is meant to not shipwreck.  You and I are learning how to protect our mind, our heart and our families from shipwrecking.

What we are learning is that a ‘harbor for our soul’ is truth that strengthens us, encourages us, protects us and prepares us when we embrace it.   A ‘Harbor For Our Soul’ is our truth-for-living. 

Our truth-for -living for today comes again from Genesis 1, God created you in His image.  God designed and created the human race for personal relationship with Him.  Furthermore, God designed and created you to know that you are loved by God.     What does this mean?

Implications Of God Having Created You

God designed and created the you for personal relationship with Him.

God knows you.

God knows your name.

God knows your story.

God sees you as relationally valuable—He wants to be known by you.

God sees you as eternally valuable—He wants to redeem you.

God sees you as intimately valuable—He wants to pursue you.

Genesis 1 says, “²⁶ 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 ever creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’

²⁷ So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

²⁸ And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ ²⁹ And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. ³⁰ And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. ³¹ And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

We saw last week that God designed and made humanity unique from all Creation with His image; He made us image bearers to be His representative among all Creation. The importance of the imago dei (eh-mah-go day)—the image of God—cannot be overstated. Its significance touches every area of life and living. Here are  practical observations and applications of God having uniquely made us in His image.

1) People neither evolved nor descended from any part of the animal kingdom.

Not over millions of years; nor are we equal to mammal, fish, insect, bird. Being made in the image of God, human beings are unique among all God’s creatures. We are qualitatively and constitutionally different from plants and animals. We have been made a little lower than the angelic beings and crowned with glory and honor:

“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. ² Out of the mouth of babies and infants, You have established strength because of Your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. ³ When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, ⁴ what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

⁵ Yet You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. ⁶ You have given him dominion over the works of Your hands; you have put all things under his feet, ⁷ all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, ⁸ the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. ⁹ O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8:1-9)

The pinnacle of creation is not the peaks of majestic mountain ranges; nor the mighty Mississippi River; or even the eagles soaring over Boy Scout Island; or fish among the Caribbean coral; or countless heavenly stars and planets nearly out of our sights.  We are Creation’s climax, because we alone bear the image of God.

2) Humans are God’s most treasured creation.  Every single human soul has intrinsic worth and dignity.  From conception to graduation into eternity, each human life has God’s image, and value. This confirms abortion is wrong.  Child abuse and neglect is wrong.  Elder abuse is wrong.  Every person matters. A person is a person no matter how small, no matter her development, no matter his environment, and no matter her degree of dependence on another human being.  Every soul is made in the image of God whether successful or not; Christian or not.  Perceived useful or not. Innocent human life must be protected whether young, old, or sick or well, even when a person wants to end his own life.  Even criminals must be valued and treated with dignity.  Only when one murders another must he pay by forfeiting his own life:  “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” (Gen 9:6)

O Lord, You have searched me and known me! ² You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You discern my thoughts from afar. ³ You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. ⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue,  behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. ⁵ You hem me in, behind and before, and lay Your hand upon me.  ⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.

⁷ Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence? ⁸ If I ascend to heaven, You are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there! ⁹ If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, ¹⁰ even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. ¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” ¹² even the darkness is not dark to You; the night is bright as the day,  for darkness is as light with You. ¹³ For You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother’s womb. ¹⁴ I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well. ¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from You, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. ¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

¹⁷ How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! ¹⁸ If I would count them, they are more than the sand.  I awake, and I am still with You . . .²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! ²⁴ And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psalm 139:1-18, 23-24)

3) There is only one race of humanity. All are made in God’s image.  Our variations of cultures, ethnicity and nationality are to be enjoyed and celebrated. Every human being is made in God’s image, descended from a single set of human parents.  Racism is a made-up sociological construct to foment division.  There is no place for racism, no place for partiality, or for assertions of ethnic superiority.

4) Men and women are equal in essence yet distinct in roles.  Nature and the Trinity shows this.  Just as God the Father is equal in essence with God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, women are equal in essence with men.  Children are equal in essence as an elderly person.  Each may—and do—have roles distinct from others with authority or responsibility over another.  But never at the human worth level.  A child must obey his mother.  But a parent is not greater than their children.  A man is not a mother and a woman is not a father.  God designed both to input uniquely in their family’s life. 

5) God made you male or female.  There are only two clear and obvious sexes.  There are only two God-given genders. Our culture is ripping from the safeties of God’s truth-for-living.  This is creating chaos in society and worse in the hearts and minds of precious children.  Personal perceptions, emotional feelings and even physical anomalies may be innumerable.  Stability and clarity begins with Genesis 1:27,

“God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him male and female He created them.”

Ignoring God’s design leads to shipwreck as a society, and individually.  This is wrong. This is pursuing literal insanity.  Affirming a child’s emotional and mental confusion and trauma cultivated by foolish adults harms rather than heals.   Without degrading one’s feelings say with love: My dear child, you have been made by your God who loves you.  He has made you who you are.  Learn to embrace and live within the strengths of who you are at the core levels. Make provisions to overcome weaknesses.   With a proper understanding of the image of God, we can see what it means to be fully human. We live out our deepest identity not in self-expression or sexual fulfillment, but in obedience to and love for the One who made us.

6) This world is our heavenly Father’s world. In the ancient world, a conquering king might put his statue in different locations throughout His realm to make clear that this was His dominion. The image of God teaches us how to truly worship in His created world.

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day [Creation] pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge [of the Creator]. (Psalm 19:1-2)

1 This is my Father’s world, And to my listening ears All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres. This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas–His hand the wonders wrought.

2 This is my Father’s world: The birds their carols raise, The morning light, the lily white, Declare their Maker’s praise. This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair; In the rustling grass I hear Him pass, He speaks to me everywhere.

7) This earth is God’s stage upon which He tells your redemption story. 

You may wonder at times, what is this Bible about?  It is about God’s loving pursuit of every single human being to turn from their sin, and to embrace faith in Christ! To experience His love and in response with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength love Him back.  Enter this great Harbor For Your Soul! 

Prayer