"Made in Secret" Psalm 139:13-18 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Pausing for a moment of silence is never very comfortable, is it?

In fact, sometimes it can be really socially awkward.

It's totally out of character for us as Americans to stand still, not be fidgeting, not be looking at our phone, not be chatting with somebody, not be have anything to do but standing perfectly still and silent out of respect.

And so what if we did that?

What if we decided that as a church, maybe as a nation, that we would pause for 30 seconds for each of those unborn that have been aboard in our country since 1973?

That's the least we could do, just to pause for 30 seconds for each of them.

If we took on that exercise, that you and I would stand perfectly still and not utter a sound for more than 55 years.

That's how long it would take, 30 seconds for each of the unborn.

You'd spend more than half of your life standing in complete respect.

I know that's not possible, so what if we did something similar?

What if we just read the names, presuming they each of them had a name, what if we just read the names of each of the 60 million that have been aborted in this country since 1973?

Similar to what they do up in New York City at Ground Zero on the anniversary of 9-11, where they read the names of those that have been lost.

What if we did that for the unborn?

That exercise in itself of just reading the names consecutively, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, would take us five continuous years.

I know we can't afford to give 55 years in silence, and I know we can't afford to give five years of reading the names.

So what if we did this?

What if we printed out the names and made a paper chain?

Again, presuming each of these 60 million had a name, we put their name in Times New Roman 12-point font and made a paper chain.

Linked it all together and spread it out.

You realize that paper chain would run from New York City to Orlando, Florida almost a thousand miles.

Well, that would probably be a little bit awkward to have that paper chain stretched from New York to Orlando.

We wouldn't want to make the country uncomfortable by making it awkward.

So what if we did this?

What if we contracted out the respect of the unborn?

What if we contracted every single registered funeral home in the United States, all 50 states, if we contracted out every single funeral home, and I looked them up how many there are, and we asked them to perform it every single day of the year if they would honor one of the unborn that was aborted in our country?

What if we did that?

Each registered funeral home in the United States would be in business every day, 365 days a year, continuously for seven years.

I don't think our forefathers ever pictured what was coming at them.

When they call themselves we the people of the United States, they could never picture the idea of abortion coming to America.

They thought, how could we ever stray from the beginning of the Declaration of Independence where we know these words?

It says we hold these truths to be self-evident.

That here's the key phrase that all men, and I would submit that even in the womb, all men are created equal, and they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights.

That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

All men, all women, unalienable rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

Abortion?

Eclipsing the rights of another human being?

We the people never saw it coming.

And now, generations later, the enormity of this national tragedy seems to be just too overwhelming.

And we ask ourselves, how did we get here?

And what should we do?

Well, if you were here this morning at the worship services, you witnessed a sharp contrast to our abortion on demand society.

We as a congregation vowed to come alongside what seemed to be scores of parents and children up on the stage this morning.

As they dedicated their children in doing that, they really followed the example of what Hannah did.

We see her story begins in 1 Samuel chapter 1.

1 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

Hannah had prayed for a baby.

Hannah had prayed for a child.

And God heard her.

Named him Samuel, which really means heard of God, herd of Elohim.

El short of Elohim.

God heard her cry.

We see what she says in verse 27 of 1 Samuel 1.

I read it this morning.

For this boy, Hannah says, I prayed, and the Lord has given me my petition which I asked of him.

So I have dedicated him to the Lord.

As long as he lives, he is dedicated to the Lord.

And we hear in the scripture, with all the emotion and excitement of a new mother, Hannah acknowledged that children are a gift of God.

God formed them in the womb, destroying the life that God had formed that would never have come across Hannah's mind.

Years later, King David, in an even more elaborate way, would also acknowledge the beauty of each new creation, the work of secret work of God and the forming of a baby in the mother's womb.

We know it's familiar writing in the famous Psalm 139.

If you have your Bibles, I'd encourage you to bring one with you and open it with me right now to Psalm 139.

And David writes that you and I were made in secret, and that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

So on this Mother's Day, with our Bibles open, we'll see the beauty and the complexity of what God intentionally made in secret.

See, Psalm 139 has compelling implications for how we view life, live life, honor life, and participate in the discussions and decisions regarding the end of life.

With our copy of the scriptures open to Psalm 139, we know that this Psalm has four six-verse stanzas where David writes about the omniscience, the omnipotence, the omnipresence, and the holiness of our great God.

Of special interest to us tonight will be verses 13 through 18, where you see the intentional power and the intentional vision of God in creating and sustaining all of human life.

All of human life and all stages of human life are sacred to God.

Let me repeat that.

All of human life and all stages of human life are sacred to God.

God cares about our beginning.

God cares about our past.

God cares about our present.

God cares about our future, and God cares about where we spend eternity.

All human life and all stages of human life are sacred to God.

So follow along as I read, starting in verse 13.

This is David writing, and he's speaking God's word right back to God.

Listen to how David writes back to his God.

He starts in verse 13.

He says, For you, speaking of God, you, God, formed my inward parts.

You wove me in my mother's womb.

I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance, and in your book were writ all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.

How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them.

If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.

And when I awake I am still with you.

David introduces us to God's creative ability.

And he begins with the word in verse 13, the word for at the beginning of the verse.

And when you look at that word for, it's telling us that all that's happened previously is being summed up here in verses 13 and subsequent.

If you look at the very first stand of the first six verses that David is writing about the omniscience of God, that God knows all about us.

There's nothing about us that God doesn't know.

Look what he says in verse 3.

He says, You are acquainted, David writes, with all of my ways.

Then also in verses 7 to 12, David writes about God's omnipresence.

He says in verse 7, where shall I flee from your presence?

There's no place we can go that God is not there, and God doesn't know where we are.

He is always with us.

Thus, when we see this word for here in the beginning of verse 13, and what follows in the next six-line stanza, beginning with verse 13, indicates that the reason that God knows us and the reason that God is always with us is because he formed us.

And he takes ownership of us.

He is our owner and our creator.

He is our author.

Surely we understand this concept of ownership.

Who's not been to a museum to see one of your favorite paintings and you look down in the right-hand corner or the left-hand corner of the canvas to see that was the person that painted.

That's the owner of that painting there.

Who's not been serenaded by a musician who sings one of your favorite songs or one of you is a favorite instrumentalist, who's not been delighted by your grandmother's secret recipe that only she knows about and only she owns.

Who's not been able to sit down and enjoy the company of a good book written by your favorite author.

We understand this value of ownership, and we understand that God, when he created us, he is the owner.

In fact, Paul writes about that in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Verses 8 and 9, it says, it's by grace and faith that we are saved.

It's not of ourselves, thus any of us would boast.

And verse 10 says, Because we are his workmanships.

That's the key word.

The Greek word for workmanships is this word called poema.

It's where we get our English word poem from.

It really means masterpiece.

We are literally God's masterpiece.

He created us in the womb in secret.

And he is the owner.

And that's why he knows us, and that's why he's everywhere with us.

And that's why David can't help but say, when he writes this back to God, he says, I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

And in doing just that, David reminds us that, number one, God forms us.

That God is the one that forms us.

This language here in verse 13, look what it says, for you form my inward parts.

You wove me in my mother's room, in my mother's womb.

That word wove, that specific word, the language, although it may appear figurative here in verse 13, is actually much closer to reality.

Because science says under supermicroscope they can see the cells, the makeup of a human being.

Literal Luke, it looks like all of the fabric is woven together.

Exactly what God says he did, what David describes, what God did, that we were woven together in our mother's womb.

All of these things, all of the parts were designed to be completely woven together.

Everything works in our body because God wove it together in our mother's womb.

I'm not sure if I shared this with this group before, but back about 13 years ago, I went through a botched surgery at a hospital locally.

I lived three years in uh somewhat pain and discomfort, but eventually in 2008, a little over 10 years ago, they said, you know what, we have figured out a way to make you a new bladder.

And what we do is we do, it's a rather difficult and it's a compromising surgery, and they compromise both your elimination systems at once.

But what they do is they go in and they took a couple of feet of my colon and they fashioned out of my colon a new bladder.

And they removed my damaged bladder and they've attached that new colon, made bladder, to where the bladder had been, and now I function.

Remember the doctor coming into my room after the eight-hour surgery and my recovery was over, and he said, It's just amazing how everything works so perfectly.

It was as if all of your body parts were made to be interchangeable.

Did he not know what God had written here?

What David had told us about in Psalm 139?

That when God wove us together in a mother's womb, for me it was 50 years prior, that God knew exactly what I would need at that moment, at that surgical procedure, to put my body back together.

And David says, we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

And all of that process, it was not just me that was fearfully, wonderfully made and woven together.

Each one of us, God has done that for each one of us.

In fact, do me a favor just for a second.

Those of you who brought them with you, put up your index finger.

Anyone, right or left, will do.

Now, though, if you look at your top of your index finger to the first knuckle where it actually bends.

Mine used to bend a lot better, but it doesn't quite bend.

But look where it first bends there.

That distance from the tip of your finger right there to that first bend is the size of a baby at two months.

That's an eight-week-old baby right there.

The size of a kidney bean, about three-quarters of an inch.

That's a two-month-old baby right there.

And scientists will tell us that at that size, when three-quarters of an inch, the size of a kidney bean, a two-month-old baby, you have basically all of the parts that you're ever going to have in your entire body.

And the rest of the seven months are really given to growth and expansion of all of your body.

Isn't that amazing how God did that?

And He continues to do that, woven together in the mother's womb.

Two months old, and you have all of the parts you're going to have, and just waiting for that growth and expansion.

And some are still growing and some are still expanding.

And think about that.

That includes the 100 million receptor rods that are in each of our eyes.

That includes the 12 vision centers that are impacted inside of our brain.

That includes the 625 sweat glands and 19,000 sensory cells that are in each square inch of our skin.

That includes the 200 bones and 500 muscles that run throughout our body in concert with our heart that beats at more than 100,000 times.

Your heart beats every single day, pumping the blood through 100,000 miles throughout your body.

And then to really blow your mind, think about each cell in your body.

And each chromosome in your cell has 20 billion bits of information in each chromosome, in each cell, and each cell has 23 pairs of chromosomes.

You can do the math.

That's why David says, we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Look how he continues in verse 14.

I will give thanks for you.

I'm fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.

That's the depths of the earth is the mother's womb.

So, in other words, what David's saying is, I have no doubt that God and God alone has the power and the ability to create life.

God weaves together human beings inside the mother's womb, which is the depths of the earth, and he does the process by himself in secret without the help of man or machine.

God is that powerful, and God is that capable.

So not only does God form us, but look also next in verse 16, but God ordains us as well.

God forms us, but not only that, but God ordains us.

Again, speaking about God and back to God, David says in verse 16, Your eyes, God, have seen my unformed substance.

In your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.

Do you believe that God is big enough and loves humankind and human beings enough that he be totally engaged in all of the details of our life?

If we know our scripture well, we know in the Old Testament that God gave some very, very specific directions to Noah as he was building that first ark.

We know that in the Old Testament, God gave some very, very specific directions as to how you should build the tabernacle, how the priests should be outfitted all the way down to what should be on their shoes.

God is a God of details.

God ordains the details of our life.

David says, even before we were born, God already had a plan for us how we would use the way that He wove us together.

Back in 2011, I had the privilege of performing the wedding, officiating the wedding for my youngest son Justin, as he and his wife got married right before Christmas.

At the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding, the wife's parents had put together this incredible slideshow.

She had collected pictures from us throughout the years of our son Justin's life and her daughter Amber from her life.

And they put this slideshow together that day.

They had the two of them about the same age at the same time, what they were doing throughout the 23 years of their life.

It was really, really cool to see.

But obviously, because we don't take pictures of ourselves every single day, at least we didn't before, now that we have selfies, but we didn't before.

And there were some gaps in there as well.

But the scripture tells us with God there's no gaps.

He knows everything about us, he knows all how we were made and woven together, and he has ordained a plan for each one of our lives.

He's most interested in every aspect of our lives.

And it's not hard work for God to ordain us as well, that David seems to write.

It's not difficult for the omnipotent one to track all of the mundane details and be interested in all the details of our life.

It's never a chore for him, it's never a bother, it's never a burden.

All of human life and all of our individual human lives are sacred to God.

Even when we weren't much, we were something to God.

And we were always on his mind.

There's not a time that we were never on God's mind.

We were always being thought about by God because not only did God form us, because he also ordained us, but also, lastly and most importantly, David continues in verse 17 and 18, but God loves us.

God formed us, yes, in our mother's womb.

God ordains all of our life.

There's no gaps with him.

But most importantly, God loves us.

Look how David speaks about that in verses 17 and 18.

He said, How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God.

How vast is the sum of them.

If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.

In other words, he never stops thinking about us.

Finally, he says, When I awake, I'm still with you.

Though we sleep, God never sleeps.

There's not a time that God is ever stopping to think, he stops thinking about us.

He's always thinking about us.

You and I are God's creative masterpiece.

We are the centerpiece of all of his creative work.

He never stops thinking about us.

It's as if God wove us together in a mother's womb and then he builds the entire universe around us because he loves us that much and he wants us to grow to glorify him.

During the time that I was dating and courting Deshua, this was before email and even before texting and before selfies and all those things, and I actually wrote her letters.

I actually wrote her love letters.

And I think she Kept all of them that I wrote her.

It's not a big box, but I think they're in a box somewhere.

And the ink is beginning to fade over the years.

And throughout our courtship, and from more than Tuesday, it'll be 36 years of marriage.

I thought a lot about Deshua.

Every day I think about Deshua, but I don't think about her all the time, every day.

There's some things that take my attention, I'm distracted by.

There's some things that I have got to work with you and they've got work to do here at the church, and so I'm not thinking about Deshua all the time, but that is not what God does with us.

There's never a time that God is not thinking about us.

There's never a time that God is distracted by anything else.

He is the one that can do all things at all times, and he seems to focus all of his energy on loving and dying for us.

God really does love us.

And he thinks about us all the time.

As we're being woven together in our mother's womb, as he's ordaining our life for us, he's carrying us through the details and the dailyness of our day.

There's never a thing that God does not want to know about us and interact with us about our lives.

If there's ever any doubt, you think about some of the other places in Scripture that speaks about how much God loves us.

I think quickly about Psalm 91, verse 11.

Psalms 91:11

God gives his angels charge concerning you to guard you in all of your ways.

God provides protection.

Joshua 1 9, be strong and courageous, he commands them.

Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

God's presence is with us.

So much he loves us.

Psalm 23, verse 5.

Psalms 23:5

God prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

He provides shelter for us.

John 14, 16, Jesus said, I will ask the Father, and He will give you another helper, that He may be with you forever.

God provides a helper for us as well.

John 14, 3, I go and prepare a place for you.

I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may also be.

God provides hope for us in the future.

Perhaps the greatest of all, Romans 5.8, God shows his love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

He loves us so much that he'd offer salvation at the cost of his own life.

So God protects human life.

God never abandons human life.

God is shelter, provides shelter for human life, God provides help for human life, hope for human life, and salvation for human life.

All of human life at all stages of human life are sacred to God.

So what are we called to do?

What are we called to do with this dilemma, which is destroying life in our country and across the globe?

We're setting the pace for abortion throughout the world.

What are we called to do?

Well, we began our day this morning honoring moms and witnessing the dedication of the scores of parents and children who have a desire, those parents, to be good stewards of the children that God gave them.

And we close our day now wondering, what are we called to do?

What a responsibility or stewardship do we have that we may bear regarding the sanctity of human life?

We remind ourselves that God created us uniquely, that God ordained us intentionally and God loves us unconditionally, so we may ask, what are we called to do?

How are you and I to respond to the dilemma, the tragic that destruction of human life that's going on around us?

As we see society progressively devaluing the sanctity of human life.

Maybe we could insert here a quick video clip of the New York State Assembly standing in ovation as they pass some progressive and horrific, horrific legislation in my old home state.

I don't think we can sit by passively.

God gave Joshua the command.

He said, Have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous.

Do not be frightened or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

Joshua was equipped.

Jesus said in Acts 1.8, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

You will be my witnesses.

The disciples were equipped.

Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 1, God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power.

2 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

Paul said in Romans 1.16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

It the gospel is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.

So it seems like from the Scripture standpoint that we're fully equipped, for perhaps maybe some lack the inclination, to defend life or to get involved.

I look in the mirror when I say that as well.

I'm not just speaking to you.

I was challenged by and agree with the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who called his German Christians, countrymen to stand together against the Nazi regime that was slaughtering six million innocent Jews during the Holocaust.

And here's what he said.

Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.

God will not hold us guiltless.

Not to speak is to speak.

Not to act is really to act.

And let's be clear: engaging the issues of pertaining to the sanctity of human life is not just the church's responsibility.

Yes, perhaps the awareness and the equipping comes through the ministry of the church, but each individual we should work to be champions for protection of those who have no voice.

Certainly you remember the biblical story in Matthew's gospel in the 14th chapter that Jesus had been doing a whole day of ministry, and at the end of the day, with this massive crowd, the disciples approached Jesus and they were concerned because the people were getting hungry and they had no food to feed them.

And so they came to Jesus and said, Jesus, we think you should send these people home.

Really, what they were saying is, let's not let their problem, hunger, become our problem, Jesus.

Send them away.

Jesus' response to them, send them away.

Send them away.

You feed them.

Jesus said, you feed them.

And then he taught them a valuable lesson.

He had his disciples go out and collect what was in the crowd.

And they collect a couple of loaves and some fish, and Jesus performed a miracle.

And giving all the disciples the leftovers, one bucket for each of them as they left.

And that he was teaching them a lesson that we're not only called to feed the people spiritually, but we're also called to meet their physical needs as well.

They wanted to remove themselves from the problem.

Don't let their problem become our problem.

But friends, the problem of the unborn is our problem.

They have no voice.

Jesus said to his disciples, you want to send them away.

They've come here looking for help.

We must help them.

Friends, the gospel is our responsibility.

Yes, I think we can go and pray in front of abortion clinics.

Yes, I do think we can write our members of Congress and our senators.

Yes, I do think we can vote certain platforms to get certain leaders in.

Yes, I think going to the March for Life and going to these walk and run and assist, those are all great things.

But there must be something more we can do.

I believe we can yet bring the gospel to the people who are doing these things.

To snuff out the life of the unborn.

We need to bring the gospel to them.

Because I believe that once they are taken over by the gospel, their view of life can't help but change.

As the Holy Spirit is now not convicting them no longer from the outside, but actually working on the inside to change their hearts, to change their thinkings, to change their mind.

That's the only way it can happen.

Yes, write your congressmen, yes, march for life, go to it, yes, those things.

But we must bring the gospel, it is our responsibility.

We need to feed them, as Jesus says.

Go feed them, you feed them.

We need to bring the gospel to them.

Perhaps some of you like me have read the book by Eric Metaxis called Amazing Grace, the story of William Wilberforce.

It's a really powerful story, and talking about Wilberforce, an 18th-century English politician, he started the anti-slavery movement in Parliament there.

He was a self-proclaimed hooligan in the youngness of his life until the age 27, he was introduced to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and his life was completely transformed.

And what was a casual connection with the slavery and the human trafficking movement in his younger days, that became the passion of his life to stop that, enslaving a human being, denying them of their God-given rights, it was horrific to him once he had the gospel.

And Wilberforce was a pragmatist, and he understood he could not win over and save everyone who was involved and supported human trafficking and slavery.

But the ones he could, he decided the way he would do it would be to approach them with the gospel.

And it appears that that's what gave him overwhelming success.

As he would set up meetings and set up lunches and set up just connections with people and began to share the gospel with them such that when they were won over by the gospel, their view of human trafficking and their view of slavery completely changed.

And that horror that plagued the 18th century was completely wiped out, all by the sharing of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I believe Wilberforce received Jesus' rebuke of the disciples, and he understood when Jesus said, you feed them, that he was speaking to him, you bring the gospel, Wilberforce, you bring the gospel to Parliament, you change the ways of people who were supporting human trafficking, you change the ways of people who were supporting slavery by bringing them the gospel.

And that's what he did.

He rolled up his sleeves, and that's what he did.

Wilberforce has long since passed, but the impact of his life and work he continued to inspire.

And like Wilberforce, I believe that you and I must be willing to act.

A life that is transformed by the gospel will have a completely different view of human life of the unborn.

A life transformed by the gospel will have a completely different view of the life of the unborn.

Paul said in Romans 1.16, and I hope that that is our case.

Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

It is the power of God to salvation to all who believe.

Those without a voice, I believe, are counting on our voice that we would be the ones to make the transformational truth of the gospel known.

Friends, we need to go feed them.

We need to bring the good news of the gospel.

I feed them, you feed them.

For the life of the unborn.

Let's pray together.

God, we thank you for the clarity of your word here in David's writing.

And God, that He has boldly proclaimed what the power of creativity and your intentionality of weaving us together in a mother's womb.

God, we admit we are suffering a national tragedy day in and day out as we, our government, our people, our friends are destroying what you have created.

So, Father, would you stop that Holocaust?

But would you use us to feed those who desperately need the gospel?

We want to follow in the command of Jesus that he gave to his disciples in Matthew 14.

You feed them, that's what we want to do, Lord.

We want to be those that feed them.

We trust what you said through the Apostle Paul, that we should not be ashamed of the gospel.

It is the power that you're using for salvation.

And so, Lord, that we would bring the gospel.

Therefore, I transform lives, and they would have a whole different view of the sanctity of human life.

Father, would you use this in that end, we pray?

And Father, we pray for those among us here who may have been involved in that be in their past that you would comfort them and encourage them.

Understand the transformational power of the gospel has transformed them as well.

That they would feel the forgiving arms of Jesus Christ wrapped around them.

But Lord, we pray.

We pray for our nation.

We pray for the leaders that you have put into power, that they would be men and women who would take a stand for life as you do.

God, that you would use us as well.

In all aspects of interactions and interpersonal relations that we have to proclaim our allegiance to you, to proclaim our belief in the sanctity of human life.

Father, would you give us success on the endeavors that we engage others with with the gospel?

That you would be pleased.

We pray this in the powerful name of Jesus.

Amen.

You have been listening to Emmanuel with Pastor Jesse Johnson.

You can find more resources like this at IBCVA.com.

Here is a parting word from Pastor Jesse.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, iBCBA.com.

If you're not a member of the local church and you live in the Washington, DC area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at the manual.

We're located in Northern Virginia, and for more information about when and where we worship, check out our church website.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you speak to you constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel for all of them.