Trinity Baptist Church

Life:  God's Gift to Man

The Value of Life

Psalm 8:4-5

 

We are spending some time through the month of January considering this amazing gift that God has given man called life.  We began with God's creation of life as He fashioned and shaped the dirt of the earth into a body and breathed into that body "the breath of life".

 

And as you know, even though Adam and Eve enjoyed a perfect relationship with God in a beautiful garden environment that He provided for them, they allowed sin to enter the picture and the consequence of that sin was the life God created would now be interrupted by an experience called death. 

 

But God wasn't content to allow man to die and be separated from Him for all eternity.  In fact, that's why He sent Jesus to earth.  He came to deal with the sin problem and restore the relationship with God that man destroyed.  In fact, that is the story of the Bible.

 

It tells us how life began, how man messed it up and what God did to fix it.  And when you look at it in that way, it provides a little insight into the value God places on life.  And that is really where I want to focus our attention today.  What is the value of life?

 

Today many churches are observing Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. It is a Sunday to emphasize the value that God places on human life and to educate and mobilize God's people to stand for life. 

While that includes making us aware of the horrendous effects of abortion and euthanasia, it is also a time to resolve that we will defend life. 

 

And the only way we will ever be serious about that is when we understand the tremendous value God places on every human being from the moment of conception to the time they draw their last breath.

 

So how do we estimate that value?  How do we get a handle on how God values a life? Let me create a scenario in your mind as a beginning point.

 

Imagine that you are driving your car at a high rate of speed and as you approach a stoplight at a busy downtown intersection you realize that your brakes have totally failed. You do a quick survey of the situation and you see that, parked on the right is a brand new Rolls Royce; parked on the left is a big truck with a military jet worth millions on the trailer behind it; and on either side of the car and truck are expensive pieces of real estate with multi-million dollar buildings.

 

And walking right in front of you, right in the middle of your lane is one of the most pathetic looking human beings you have ever seen.  It is an old woman who has obviously lived on the streets all her life. She appears to be very unhealthy, hardened by years of sleeping under bridges. Her mouth droops to one side. Her clothes are nothing but filthy rags.

 

She drags one foot behind the other in a kind of limp and her demeanor tells you that there is probably something wrong with her mental faculties.

 

Now, remember. Your brakes have failed so as you hurtle toward this intersection, you must choose what your car will crash into, the Rolls in one lane, the truck, the valuable real estate, or the old, homeless street woman.

 

So which would you choose to sacrifice and which would you choose to save?  And let's take all the speculation out it like what if the old woman is your mother-in-law or do you have insurance and all the variables.

 

Now I’m no mind reader but I imagine you are probably thinking: What a ridiculous question!  The answer is obvious. Obviously, we would not choose to sacrifice the old lady to save the real estate or the car or plane. 

 

And you are exactly right!  Any reasonable driver and certainly any responsible Christian would do any and everything they could to avoid hitting a human being because all of us instinctively know that people are much more valuable than property.

 

But why do we, as Christians, feel this way? What is it about this decrepit old street lady that makes her more valuable than a $500,000 auto or a truck filled with a valuable cargo or even some real estate valued at millions of dollars?

 

After all, science tells us that the human body is made up of chemicals worth less than a dollar. So how could we possibly come to the conclusion that this old woman is more valuable than anything else in this scenario?

 

Several possibilities come to mind:

Maybe we feel that human beings like this old street lady are valuable because of some sort of inherent human worth.  After all, the human personality is fascinating and intriguing.  There is a beauty and a mystery about people that you don’t find in things like cars or real estate.  There is much more to a human than just the outward appearance.

 

But I'm not sure that is the reason we come to the conclusion that all human beings are more valuable than material objects.  After all, while there are a lot of people out there that are beautiful and intriguing, and fun to be with, the truth is not everybody is. 

 

In fact, I've seen a lot of girls that are not nearly as  pretty as a new Rolls Royce, and not nearly as shapely and well-built either! The lady we are about to plow into in our imaginary intersection is a good example of this truth.

 

From a purely aesthetic standpoint, the BMW and even the buildings possess more beauty than she does. Her mental faculties are flawed. She probably stinks. She is definitely not attractive.  So, had the decision about what to sacrifice and what to save been made based on attractiveness,  this particular human being would been ranked way on down the list. 

 

Maybe we would decide to avoid this old woman because human beings are productive and useful.

The range of things a person can do far exceeds that of a car or a truck or a building. After all, it was human beings that conceived of and built cars and trucks and buildings!

 

And as you and I know, history records that there have been some fantastically capable people down through the years-people before whom we stand in awe when we view their accomplishments. People like, Einstein, Schweitzer and Madame Curie, Booker T. Washington were individuals of creative genius.

 

But once again, is this fact enough to support a universal principle of human value? I think not, for again, what can be said of some people cannot be said of all people.  The truth is, not every human being is that productive. Some are just colossal failures. 

 

And by the way, I'm tired of children blaming their parents for all their problems and failures.  If my momma had done this. . .If daddy hadn't done that.

Just once, I'd like for some punk to say, "You know what?  I had great parents.  I'm just an idiot and a jerk and that's the reason I am where I am in life!"

Obviously, not everyone is useful and productive. 

 

Look again at the scene in my imaginary intersection. That little woman limping across the street was not the most powerful thing in that setting. The truck could carry more cargo. The Rolls could give much more social esteem and the business property could earn more income in a month than this old lady could earn in years, even if she was healthy in mind and body.

 

So, this little old lady could not do much of anything productive in society which means that, according to the test of productivity we would not choose to save the old lady, for she would be at the bottom of the scale.  And what was true for her is true of many human beings.

They are not all that skilled or capable or creative and if you evaluate them solely in terms of their ability to contribute to society, unfortunately their superiority over material objects becomes debatable at best.

 

So why would we instinctively choose to save her in this impending crash at the expense of the car or the truck or the real estate? Why is human life that valuable and that precious?

 

The fundamental answer to that question is that human life is valuable because God, the Creator of all life, says it is. The ultimate reason why persons are to be valued more than property is not found in their natures but in God’s nature. God’s evaluation is what is decisive here.

 

The writer of the 8th Psalm pondered this same issue. One night as this ancient Hebrew stood under the starry heavens, he found himself asking the question that must have occurred to everyone at some time or the other.  Listen as he speaks:

 

Psalm 8:3-4

 

In other words, he asked, "Amid all the mind-staggering immensities of stellar space, what value does one tiny human being possess, God? How can I or any human being possibly have value in relation to all of this grandeur?"

 

The answer that comes back is very significant.

 

verse 5

 

Now the key word in the text is the word "You".  We could talk about having honor and glory and where our creation ranks alongside the angels, but we must first and foremost understand that this verse is telling us our value as human beings rests ultimately on God’s evaluation since He is our Designer and Creator.

 

And out of all that God has created, He has designated human life as having the greatest value. Our superiority over the rest of the created order is based on that fact and that fact alone.  So, only when we allow God to evaluate creation do we find a basis for regarding human life as being more valuable than anything else. 

 

That means the ultimate reason our choosing to collide with the Rolls Royce or the truck or take out one of the building rather than the old woman comes down to one three-letter word and that is God.  It is He who has made us and it is He who has made this ethical distinction that places the ultimate value on human life. 

 

So let's think for a few moments about what it is about the worth of all human life that causes the Creator of Life to place this infinite value on human life.  A couple of things come to mind that we've already discussed.  First of all,

 

 

As creation was taking place, everything God made was appraised as being "good".  But on the 6th day, when God created man, He was especially pleased.  Listen to how that is described in

Genesis 1:31

 

He said that because human life was the crown jewel of all of creation. He stopped creating once He made us.  In fact, everything else was made with human beings in mind. 

 

Most of the scientific community adheres to something referred to as, "The Anthropic Principle." 

Simply stated, the Anthropic Principle implies that when we look at the world around us, it seems that the universe was somehow designed to support and nourish human life.

 

And without getting too technical or scientific, that is the principle that tells us if the earth's tilt on its axis was slightly different in one direction or the other, the earth would either freeze or burn up.  Or, if the earth had been a bit closer or further from the sun, or just a little larger or smaller, or if it rotated at a speed any different from the one we’re spinning at right now, life would be unsustainable. 

 

Those and many other things revealed by this Anthropic Principle are just reminders that Somebody made sure things were exactly right so that you and I could live on planet Earth.

 

And although they will never admit it, modern science points to the fact that we must really matter to God. So human life is extremely valuable. It was the climactic achievement of God’s creative work. It was, we are, very good in the sight of God.

 

Secondly,

 

 

Our worth is revealed, not only in WHAT God made when He made us, but the WAY He made us.  As we've already learned in this series, the creation of man differed from all the other acts of creation described in Genesis chapter 1.  In each of the other acts of creation God said, Let there be, and just "be'd". In other words, God spoke and creation occurred.  

 

But only with the creation of human life does God begin by saying, "Let us make man in our image."

God didn’t just speak us into existence as He did everything else, He made us. In fact, to create the first human, verse 7 of Genesis 2 says, God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breathe of life, and man became a living being.

 

With nothing else did God “breathe the breathe of life” into them.  Human life was made differently and more carefully and more intentionally that anything else. And that brings up a third indication that human life has value and that is  

 

 

Our worth is revealed by WHAT He made, HOW HE made us, and WHY He made us.  We are made to be a reflection of God.  Image refers to someone who resembles someone else—like a son who is the image of his father.

 

Since God is spirit, image and likeness cannot refer to physical appearance, but rather to inner characteristics like the ability to reason and enter into relationships, especially with God. Obviously, God’s purpose for creating human beings was to make creatures like Himself with whom He could relate.

 

Do you realize that human beings are the closest thing in all creation to God? Isn't it interesting that the devil would have us to believe that the closest thing in creation to us is monkeys and apes? 

 

But Scripture teaches the closest thing to us is God Himself!  Psalm 8:5, which I referred to earlier, says that we are a little lower than heavenly beings.

Some translations say a little lower than angels but the word translated “angels” or “heavenly beings” is ELOHIM…one of the Hebrew words for God and what the verse actually says is that we are created a little lower than God Himself.

 

Listen:  the order in creation is not God, angels, humans. It is God, humans, angels, and on down the chain.  You and I rank above angels!  That's why one day we will be given the responsibility of judging them.  What this Psalm is telling us is that from God’s perspective, angels aren’t of greater value than human beings.  In fact, the reverse is true.

 

Angels are never said to be created in God’s image. Only man is given this distinction. Think of what this means. God values us more highly than anything else in all of creation, including His angels!

 

 

Humans are valuable and precious because God  made them as the climax of creation, we are made differently than any other created thing and humans are more like God than anything else.  But there is one primary way the value of human life is seen that reveals the heart of God mare than any other and that is 

 

 

That is an estimation of human worth beyond our comprehension. How much does a human have to be worth for God to bankrupt heaven?  When God chose to save us, He gave the One thing He did not create.  It would have been no big deal for God to give a planet or a universe to save us.  He could just speak another one into existence. 

 

But Romans 5:8 says, “God demonstrates His own love—-He shows how much He values human life in this—while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

 

Our value is indicated by the fact that God not only loved us enough to create us in His image, He also loved us enough to pay the unbelievable cost of redeeming us.  God was declaring that human life was worth the death of His only Son on Calvary’s cross. That means that, as C.S. Lewis once wrote, there is no such thing as a “mere mortal.”

 

So, for all these reasons, as Christians, we would choose to crash into the car or the cargo truck or the real estate before we would crash into that street lady because we instinctively recognize that human life is precious and valuable.

 

But as you well know, our world is suffering today because humanity is moving farther and farther away from this belief in the infinite value of human life. Every day laws are being enacted and enforced that cheapen human life.  In fact, we are now living in a culture that is more and more, choosing to run over the little lady in the street.

 

Consider the following facts with me:

 

 

But the greatest indication of our culture’s devaluing of human life is found in the practice of abortion. As you probably know, tomorrow, January 22 marks a grim anniversary in American history for it was on that day in 1973 that the Supreme Court legalized abortion.

 

We are now 45 years since the first wave of unborn children fell and the accumulation of each year’s toll is now in excess of 60 million. Think of it this way: In America we have nearly 2,900 abortions per day, 120 per hour, 1 every 30 seconds.

Their names would fill the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial wall well over 700 times and the vast majority, over 93% of those little lives, are ended simply because they were an inconvenience. In other words, most of those who have an abortion are simply running over the old woman in the road because other things in life are more important or valuable.

 

To see the irony of what has happened, consider this: 

 

It is illegal in America and punishable by fine and/or imprisonment of up to as much as $500,000 to destroy the egg of a bald eagle and yet completely legal under almost all circumstances to kill a human baby in the womb of its mother.

 

No doubt, you and I live in a sin-sick society. However, the good news is Jesus came to heal the sick.  And as His followers, we are called to administer treatment to the sick society in which we live. So how are we to do this? What can we do to end this epidemic?  Well, continuing this metaphor, like any doctor dealing with sickness, we must do three things. 

 

First of all we must

 

 

I mean by that we have to influence our culture so that the laws and current philosophies that cheapen human life are changed. And there are many treatments available for these symptoms.

 

Some Christians treat the devaluing of human life by participating in pro-life marches. Others write letters to our nation’s leaders. Some boycott products owned by companies that devalue life. Others vote for politicians whom they feel will participate in enacting laws that give proper value to human life.

 

Still others work very hard to prevent unwanted pregnancy by teaching teens the importance of sexual abstinence before marriage or volunteer at crisis pregnancy centers.  By the way, I want to invite you to go by Hope Pregnancy Center today from 1 to 3 for their open house. It is located just a few blocks from us at 921 N Washington.  

 

So there are many ways for us treat the symptoms of our sin sick society.  And I am happy to report there are some good things that have been happening.  Whatever else you may think about President Trump, so far he has been a friend to pro-life causes.  During his presidential campaign, he made several commitments in a letter to the pro-life community.

 

Candidate  Trump committed to:

 

 

 

 

And in his first year of office, President Trump has kept his word in that he has

 

 

 

 

 

 

So at the government level, we finally have a president in office who is dealing with the symptoms that threaten the culture of life in America.  But we all know it is never enough to just treat the symptoms.  Those who value life as God values life must also

 

 

I mean by the sick, those who have been led to embrace this devaluation of human life. 

 

That means we must lovingly minister to those who are on “the other side” of this issue….those who vote opposite to our belief….even those who favor the “pro-choice” stance.  After all, Jesus commanded us to love even those who oppose us when we try to do His will so, our response to people on the other side of this issue should clearly reflect the love of God.

 

It is never right to fight wrong in a wrong way. We are never justified to use the devil’s tools to attack his work. We are reminded that we do not return evil for evil or insult with insult.  When we do we are no better or different that those who oppose us.

 

We are never to hate sinners…only the sin. Those on the other side must never be given reason or opportunity to doubt our love for them in spite of our disagreeing with their position on the issue or how to fight it.

 

We must also make sure our pro-life strategies include showing that we not only value the baby but the mother of the baby. I meanby that, we must not just be pro-baby, pro-mother and pro-father and pro family also.   

 

One way we do this is by pressing the point that abortion hurts women. It is expensive, physically unpleasant, humiliating, and often painful. It does not heal a physical problem but instead subverts a healthy normal process.

 

 

Just as our bodies are designed to breathe air and digest food, women’s bodies are designed to sustain a pregnancy and deliver a baby.   It is a delicately balanced system ecology and when something as violent as abortion disrupts it, it is not surprising that damage can result. For example:

 

 

A man whose wife had abortion and then drifted into severe depression wrote, “They told her it would give her control over her body, but what kind of tradeoff is that to gain control of your body and lose control of your mind?”  The cruel irony is that abortion has been presented as something that would set a woman free when it really doesn’t.

 

So one way we minister to the sick people in all of this is to communicate the value of not only the babies but of their mothers as well….we help them to understand that abortion is bad for them.

 

I think we also need to try to put ourselves in these people’s shoes and try to understand why they had an abortion in the first place.  Many times the truth is they felt forced to do so.  For some, their families or boyfriends may have pushed them to do this.

 

 

 

Statistics show that abortion is often an act of despair. In fact 70% of women undergoing abortions admit that they believed it was morally wrong but they felt they had no other choice.

 

And when abortion has taken place, we need to be the first ones there to remind that grieving and hurting family that God still loves them and is willing to forgive and help them receive the healing forgiveness of God.  Very often the loving treatment they receive from the church and its ministries is what helps them to understand just how precious human life really is.

 

So, we should respond by treating the ymptoms….by ministering to the sick…and finally and most importantly….we must

 

 

As I mentioned earlier, abortion and laws that devalue human life are only symptoms of the disease of sin. And, as necessary as they are, all the marching and voting and legislation in the world will not cure a sin sick heart.

 

If we limit our response to this kind of action we must realize that we are only treating the symptoms of the problem. The best way to help people value life as God values life is to introduce them to the God Who values them. That is the ultimate cure!  That is the way to change people’s hearts and actions.

 

Unfortunately some get so absorbed in fighting the symptoms of abortion they never get involved in distributing the cure.  That's where the ministry of pregnancy centers is so valuable. 

Very often, they are the first contact  that is made and through their ministry many come to know the Lord.  In fact, since the first of this year, three young ladies were saved just a few blocks from here at Hope Pregnancy Center. And I want to remind you that is the most effective way we have to heal this disease.

 

Many of you have heard of Norma McCorvey.  She was the “Roe” of “Roe v. Wade.” For decades she fought for the pro-choice movement.  But then she

heard the gospel, responded to it and invited Jesus into her heart and life. 

 

Today she works to end abortion because her heart was changed as she met her Creator and committed her life to Him.  You see changing hearts is much more profitable than changing laws.  We must not allow ourselves to become sidetracked into treating only the symptoms. We must also distribute the cure.

 

When Jesus had the conversation with Nicodemus that we looked at last week, He mentioned the time that the people of Israel were wandering in the desert and they were attacked by a plague of poisonous snakes. 

 

God told Moses to fashion a bronze serpent and lift it up where everyone could see it.  And those who looked up to see that serpent on the staff would be healed. Jesus Christ said, "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up."

 

His comment is a reminder that all of humanity is sick with the disease of sin, but a cure is available.  

And if those who are sick will just to the cross, they can receive forgiveness and healing and eternal life. 

I want you to know today that you are infinitely valuable to God.  He has created us in His image and when we sinned away that image, He came to earth and paid the price for that image to be restored. 

 

In fact, He created us in His image, then He was created in OUR image so we could be made like Him.

He came to where we lived so we could live with Him for eternity.   And when the Bible tells us He was made like us in every way, He left out no detail, even to the point of being born and presented to the world as an illegitimate baby.

 

I came across a beautiful piece written by two pastors named Chad Bird and Emery Price entitled "Jesus and Abortion"  that I want to leave you with today.  And it is so well-written, I'll just read it as they wrote it:

 

If April 1 is April Fools’ Day, then March 25 is Divine Fool’s Day. Falling nine months before Christmas, it’s the day when God set in motion what appeared to be a foolish plan. The Creator of heaven and earth became a two-celled human zygote gradually drifting down the fallopian tube of an unwed Jewish virgin.

 

Every few hours, he doubled his number of cells until, a few days later, he made himself at home inside her uterus. There he would remain for the summer and fall. A God swimming in amniotic fluid. A God growing a heart and liver and lungs. A God kick-starting a plan that seemed to have failure written all over it.

 

How would this ever work? What was he thinking, becoming one of us? What we need is a mega-God not a mini-human. Give us an almighty deity not a helpless fetus. We want a muscular Jesus to stand strong in heaven and do powerful stuff to fix our lives and save the world.

 

But it’s so like our backwards God to defy our expectations and become a baby. It’s the kind of thing only a Lord of love would do.

Everything we have been, he wanted to be, including an unborn child, so that everything we are would be saved by him.

 

All babies conceived are not only the object of heaven’s love; each is a tiny human reflection of the God who was once in a womb himself. Jesus, who fills all things, was once so small you’d have to kneel before a microscope to gaze at the God you worship.

 

There, floating down the fallopian tube, or folded in that uterus, is the Son of God.  In the magnitude of his mercy, he joined ranks with the weak, the dependent, the vulnerable of humanity.

 

But we’re not just talking about unborn babies; Jesus joined ranks with their mothers as well. Mary gave him his DNA. She fed him with her own body. He was closer to no human than he was to her. Mary felt the feet of God kick inside her stomach.

 

And like many of those who get pregnant today, the mother of Jesus was a teenager. Her own fiancé almost dumped her when he found out she was pregnant. From the moment Jesus entered our world, he was surrounded by suffering people in desperate situations.

That’s the situation of many unmarried women today who get pregnant, as well as the men who get them pregnant. They’re scared. They’re confused. They’re desperate. They’re desperate to believe almost anything that will make this all go away, including the lie that their unborn baby is just tissue and not real human life.

 

In far too many situations, these are the couples who fall prey to groups like Planned Parenthood. Fear ignites a desperate fire within them that often mistakes gasoline for water. In desperation, they snatch at something, anything, that they think will help extinguish the flames.

 

But it only makes matters worse—much worse. When they opt for abortion, not only do they take the life of their children, they conceive within their souls a monster of shame and guilt and regret whose gestation period threatens to last a lifetime.

 

There is a love that is stronger than death, including the death of abortion. It is a strong love hidden in the weakness of the baby inside Mary. It is a strong love that remained hidden even when this baby became a toddler, then a teen, and finally a man whose mercy gushed out in streams of blood when he gave his life on the cross. This love is life itself, the life of God as a man, which he offers and gives to all, including the unwanted, the discarded, the desperate, the guilty, the shamed.

 

There is a reason Jesus didn’t just jump down to earth as a thirty year old man ready to fulfill his Father’s mission. Because that’s not us. And to save us he had to become like us.

We begin as that two-celled zygote in the fallopian tube, so God became that. We spend nine months in the womb, so God did that, too.   But he wasn’t just following in our fetal footsteps, he was saving us every inch of the way. His conception hallows our conception. His time in the uterus sanctifies our time there. His birth cleanses our birth.

 

His intimate bond with his mother binds him in love to all mothers and fathers. God infuses every stage of human existence with divine compassion. He knows us. He loves us. He is one of us. And he saves us, no matter how small or big a human we might be.

 

For every unwanted, aborted child, Jesus the child conceives a saving love that knows no bounds. For every desperate mother who murders her baby, Jesus the baby was born to set her free from guilt and shame. For every employee of Planned Parenthood, Jesus the physician of soul and body, shed his blood on the cross to reconcile them to his Father.

 

For every boyfriend or parent who has strong-armed a girlfriend or daughter into an abortion, Jesus the man stretched out his arms and died to make peace between them and heaven. There is no sin so big that God’s love is not still bigger. There is no shame so great that his holiness cannot clothe it with honor. Show him your sands of guilt and he’ll point you to the mountain of his love.

 

God became an infant to draw every unwanted, unplanned, and discarded image-bearing fetus to himself.  But he also turns to the desperate, delinquent mother and says, “You come too.”

And to the doctor still holding the forceps, he says, “And you as well.” Such is the absurd and holy scandal of the incarnation. 

 

Have you had an abortion? Have you supported or performed an abortion? Jesus will remove the monster of shame and guilt and regret and fill that chasm inside you with himself, with a love stronger than death, a love that transforms you into a son or daughter of God—beautiful, chosen, royal.

 

He is not against you but for you. With every fiber of his being, every cell of his body, he is your advocate and friend. This child of Mary makes you a child of your heavenly Father.

 

And that, my friend is the value of a life.

 

Let's pray.