(Taken from the Human Life Sunday Sermon Outline from Focus on the Family - and modified)
Have you ever done a piece of needlework, woodworking, a painting, or maybe a handcraft for someone special to you? Or for yourself? Or what about an organization, a ministry, a club, or something special you may have started? You always have a very special place in your heart for that which you had a primary role in creating, don't you? Imagine how God feels when He creates each one of us, and then we are simply "thrown away!"
Perhaps you know of someone who's pregnant with a child the "experts'" say will be less than perfect. What goes through your mind…abortion? Maybe you know an elderly person who's been incapacitated by illness. Surely he or she wouldn't want the "quality of life" they've been given would they?
First it was the unborn, via abortion. Francis Schaefer, the twentieth century prophet and intellectual, warned us in the '70s that abortion was the beginning of a slippery slope of the denigration of human life that would eventually lead to euthanasia and such things as physician-assisted suicides. People then were incredulous. No way could that come to pass! Now citizens in Oregon have voted to maintain the availability of that very "option." And how many of you do not recognize the name of Dr. Death, Jack Kevorkian? WHY? WHY
People think their answers, their solutions, their viewpoints are at least equal to, if not superior to, God's. WE decide which unborn children should be given an opportunity at life. WE decide when someone's life is no longer "useful" enough or of sufficient "quality" to be allowed to continue. Once WE decide the unborn, the elderly, the disabled, the terminally ill are only "problems" to us with no intrinsic value, it becomes all too easy to dispose of them.
Meanwhile, God's heart aches as He sighs, "For as
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your
ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Is. 55:9) ALL HUMAN LIFE IS
SACRED.
I. Life is sacred…because God made it.
A. It was created by God
2. "For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." Psalm 91:11
2. "The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." Jer. 31:3
3. "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." Jer. 1:5
II. Life is sacred…no matter what its condition might be.
A. Life is a challenge in a sin-tainted world.
1. "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you." 1 Peter 5:7
3. "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye
might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good
cheer; I have overcome the world." John 16:33
Including…
Some studies report that as many as 90 percent of couples faced with an amnio-centesis report of probable Down syndrome will choose to abort. Yet, do you know anyone who has a child with Down syndrome who doesn't tell you this child is the light of their life, an absolute joy, the most loving person they've ever known?
2. The post-abortive woman who struggles with the reality that she consented to her baby's death.
3. The post-abortive father who walked away from the reality of his sin.
4. The terminally ill or aged who have been forgotten of who have outlived many of their family and friends.
5. The disabled, the disadvantaged
Illustration: Pastor and author Max Lucado tells in his book The Applause of Heaven about a sweater that hangs in his closet. He says he seldom wears it-it's too small, the sleeves are too short, the shoulders too tight. Some of the buttons are missing, the thread is frazzled.
Logically, he says, he should throw out that sweater since he has no use for it and will never wear it again. It simply takes up space in his closet.
That's what logic says.
But love, he reports, won't let him.
Why not? What's unusual about that sweater? To start with, it has no label, no tag telling you, "Wash in cold water." That's because it wasn't made in a factory, produced on an assembly line as the product of a name-less employee earning a living. Rather, it was the creation of a devoted mother expressing her love-his mother. That sweater is unique, one of a kind, irreplaceable. Each strand was chosen with care, each thread selected with affection.
And so, even though that sweater has lost all of its use, it has lost none of its value. It is valuable not because of its function, but because of its MAKER. So is each life.
The Applause of Heaven, Max Lucado, copyright 1990, 1995, Word Publishing, Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved.
6. The lonely and emotionally distraught Jesus said, "
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you,
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,
ye have done it unto me." (Matthew 25:40)
2. We are His hands and His heart to a desperate, searching humanity.
A. Life exists before we enter the material world.
2. "In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." (John 14:2)
3. "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." (1 John 5:13)
The steps to eternal life:
2. Agree that Jesus Christ is the only provision for your salvation. (Jn. 1.12)
3. Receive Jesus Christ as our Savior and ask Him to come
into your heart. (Ro. 10:9)
A well-known speaker started off hid seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like to have this $20 bill." Hands started going up. He said, I am going to give the $20 to one of you, but first, let me do this."
He proceeded to crumple the twenty up. He then asked, "Who still wants it?" Still the hands were in the air.
"Well," he replied, "what if I do this?" And he dropped on the ground and begin to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it back up now crumpled and dirty. "Now who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.
"My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value at all! It was still worth $20, regardless of what had happened to it."
"Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled and ground into the dirt by decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened, or what will happen, you will never lose your value in God's eyes. To Him, dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless."
Psalms 17:8 reminds us that God views us as the "apple" of His eye."
THOUGHT: The worth of our lives comes not from what we do or who we are, but from WHOSE we are! YOU ARE SPECIAL--don't ever forget it!
ALL human life is valuable, then because God creates and sustains it, in His own image and for His purpose--His sacred image, and His sacred purpose. Those are His "ways," which Isaiah tells us are so much higher than ours. Deliberately violating God's "ways" is the Bible's definition of sin.
And there's only one effective way to deal with sin:
confess and repent. God is calling us to confess that we have not followed
His "ways" and repent from only following our "ways"--individually, as
a church, as a nation. How will you respond to God's call?
Gary Marcum - East 38th Street Free Will Baptist - 012101am - This was modified from an outline sent with a Focus on the Family video. Basically I preached their outline and changed the scrikptures to KJV, adding some of my comments. I did not request their permision to post this yet, so understand it is just for viewing.