Every Life

Our scripture this morning is from Psalm one thirty nine one through eighteen.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up.

You discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

You hem me in behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

It is high, I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your spirit?

Or where shall I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there.

If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night.

Even the darkness is not dark to you.

The night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts.

You knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works.

My soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you.

When I was being made in secret, secretly woven in the depths of the earth, 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.

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

If I would count them, they are more than the sand.

I awake and I am still with you.

This is the word of the Lord.

May God bless the reading and the proclamation of his promises.

You may be seated.

I'm up here a little bit longer this morning.

Um my name is Brandy Harris, for those of you that I have not met.

I'm actually speaking on behalf of Life Ford, uh, just a little announcement this morning for something that our church is about to do to support that ministry.

Um I have the privilege, I have the privilege of being a former employee of Life Ford, and I now get to serve on the board.

Um so one thing that we are we're gonna do is tell you a little bit about Life Forward this morning.

Um but first uh we want you to know that it's a gospel-focused pregnancy care center.

Um we've actually supported them in the past.

Some of you have been to the banquet, uh, you've been to the walk for life.

Even upcoming in April, we have the banquet again.

Um, for any of you who are interested in supporting in that way.

Um, we have the walk for life coming up.

We're about to do what's what's called the Change for Life, and I'm gonna tell you about that.

But we want you to know that we support the center because, like I said, it is a gospel-focused pregnancy center, caring for women and men and families in the areas of Mount Auburn where there's one location, there's another location in Springdale, and they're about to open up another location in Loveland in the fall.

And uh the good thing about that is that you would think, why does Loveland need a pregnancy center?

What about the demographics up there?

Well, they're actually just starting to launch that because there are no gospel-focused pregnancy centers, and the Lord's provided an opportunity for us to have a new location up there.

So that's something to look forward to, and another way we'll continue to support them.

Um, but also this pregnancy center provides baby items uh for any women and families who may come in.

And so I've donated some of our little girls' items already.

Um you're always welcome to do that or to ask me further questions about that.

Uh but what we're gonna do is we have some baby bottles in the back, and there's a campaign for life that we are kicking off today, and it'll go through April 5th, and it's called Change for Life.

So uh we want you to be creative with this.

First of all, take a baby bottle home.

Remember to bring it back in a month, uh, but take one for your family and be competitive with it.

So you can add checks, um, change, dollar bills, credit cards, just kidding.

Um but but we want you to use this as an opportunity for conversation within your family to talk about life, talk about physical life that God saves, talk about abundant life among your family, your friends, your neighbors, um, and then be competitive about it within your family, within your missio group.

I mean, I'm in the Ramez community group, and we might beat you all with our baby bottles, so who knows?

Um, but feel free to grab one at the end of this service, and then make sure you bring it back on April 5th.

We're about to watch a video uh about a lady named Sunshine, and she was actually a client of Life Ford who came in and she's gonna tell you in the video, you'll learn about uh how this this ministry has ministered to her.

Um and also just a little reminder Change for Life raises over$50,000 a year for women and families who experience unplanned pregnancy.

And then on top of that, the that money goes to services like not only the the um items that you can donate towards women and children, but also there's mentoring programs, there's counseling programs that they refer out for women who have had abortions and men who've been affected by that.

Um, and also uh there's just a lot of other opportunities for uh, like I said, mentoring, there's parenting classes.

So we just want you to be more aware of this ministry that we are supporting as a church.

And I'll be in the back and you can ask me any questions you want after the service.

But for now, watch this video.

When I first um found out I was pregnant, I found out um by taking that initial pregnancy test at the abortion clinic.

I am a registered nurse and I did work for an abortion provider.

I was a surgical nurse and um worked directly in an abortion center.

Stood next to women because they had procedures.

Ironically, abortion services were free and prenatal care was going to um come at a cost.

In that short amount of time, there was uh plenty of opposition to the pregnancy and um very minimal support.

I had no idea what to expect when I contacted Life Forward.

The person who answered the phone asked for my name, and I said my name is Sunshine, and they said, Oh, that's such a great name.

And I said, you know, it's really a hard name to live up to.

I didn't feel sunshiny.

Um uh first came to life forward, um I was not in a very faithful place.

Um it was kind of in a um a doubtful place.

I was really questioning um what was God's plan for me, and how did he expect that I was gonna handle or how much more could I possibly handle?

Life forward reminded me that God has a plan.

Brought me back to God and his message and the meaning of life.

Gave me hope.

And I made it.

And um the journey wasn't as bad as I thought that it was going to be, and it got easier the closer that I got to God.

My forward gave me that direction and that sense of faith was renewed.

And it still is hard to this day, um, but I think God knows, and I got the message in a little tiny package.

February 13th of 2018, and her name is Jolie.

And my name is Justin.

I'm one of the pastors here at Missio, and it's my honor and privilege to be able to preach God's word to you this morning.

Um, Life Forward is a local partner of ours that we're establishing here at Missio.

And one of the things with us as we find ourselves in a culture and context uh up in the burbs is that it's gonna be really easy to keep clean hands when it comes to gospel mission.

And so we're gonna have to think of creative ways to get our hands in the muck and mud of gospel mission in our city as we engaged culture, because there can seem like there's this chasm, right, between us and the urban core, where we would probably place most of our problems with our culture in the midst of that context.

But if we're honest, it it it sin resides and reigns here as well.

It's just it's hard to discover.

It's hidden behind closed garage doors and big bank accounts.

And so we want to be able to engage culture here.

We want to engage sin here with the hope of the gospel, and we're gonna try to provide ways for you that are tangible to get your hands dirty and mission.

And so, Change for Life is a wonderful opportunity for you to do that as we partner with Life Forward on several of their uh fundraising endeavors.

And hopefully some of our women and men can participate in mentorship, prayer, counseling with these women who feel like there's no other option but to kill their child.

And that's what we want to try to overcome and show them that there's hope in the gospel, that there's a purpose for life, and that God is sovereign over their experience and their current condition.

So we read Psalm 139 this morning as the text that we're preaching out of.

And we're taking a break in our For the Church sermon series where we've been talking about spiritual gifts because we wanted to launch this campaign and we want to try and draw our focus into why we do this.

Why would we partner with a group like Life Forward?

And if I was to summarize Psalm 139 in whole, I would say that it's this: that the Lord knows you, is with you, and has formed you.

You see, there's a famous passage of scripture where Jesus tells a parable, it's a story to prove a point.

And we find it in Matthew chapter 25, verse 31.

Matthew 25:31

And this passage of scripture is used very universally by the church and the parachurch to try and motivate and encourage people to do this work of mercy.

And that's what we're called to as the church.

We're ultimately called to provide mercy, not through just gospel proclamation, but by gospel participation and actually meeting the needs of the people around us.

But again, not absent of the truth of the gospel in our mouth.

But Matthew 25, 31 through 40, Jesus is going to call our attention to the need for mercy.

It says this when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.

Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a set a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.

Then the king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.

I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink?

And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?

When did we see you sick in prison and visit you?

And the king will answer them, Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me.

And so Jesus is trying to paint this portrait of mercy.

And one of the things that he talks about is this reality of sheep and goats.

And we can really kind of unpack this to understand the love of God, right?

Jesus' love is an exclusive love, it's not an inclusive love.

In fact, from this story, the very one of the very first things that he's going to do as he comes back to take his bride in this consummation of the church is that he's going to establish, these are mine and these are not.

And the identifying marker of this righteous versus cursed paradox is that when they were when when the least of these was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, sick, in prison, that the church met their needs.

And the last, well, when did we do this, though?

When did we actually participate in this action?

And Jesus' affirmation of their good works is that when you did it to the least of these, you did it to me also.

The point is that we get to honor and serve Christ by honoring, loving, and serving the marginalized.

And we forget this a lot in the church.

We think that we actually serve and honor Christ by reading our Bible and spiritual disciplines of prayer and worship and showing up to church and making sure that we're working here.

But the reality of the nature is that most of us are hard at work here and not hard at work there.

And we forget this premise that the gospel meets needs.

The gospel meets both spiritual and physical needs.

And Christ says that you honor and serve me by serving the least of these.

While we are not of this world, we do live in it.

And living in it presses us to deal with cultural tensions all around us.

So we search the scriptures, we discern the heart of God through his revelation, and we get it right in our head, our heart, and our hands.

You see, our theology has to be functioning.

If our theology doesn't produce work, then it's a dead theology.

You're not actually understanding your scripture, you're not understanding the revealed word of God if it doesn't produce itself in action.

We have to allow for the scriptures and robust biblical theology to inform our mind, but to change our hearts and cause our hands to action.

So today we build out how we engage the life and the death and destruction of the unborn.

You see, when we don't know where we come from, it can have deep impact on how we actually interact with ourselves, with others, and certainly with the idea of this cosmic, all-knowing, all-being, all-forming creator, God of the universe.

We see this impact revealed in the cultural narrative of finding oneself, right?

Everybody kind of goes through this journey of finding oneself.

And there's some beauty in that statement, right?

Because there's at least acknowledgement in the subconscious level that you're lost.

And you have to work and labor to try and find oneself.

The problem is most turn to self to begin to fill in the gaps of actually being found.

And so everything else, importance, purpose, value, dignity, is placed on self as the origin of existence.

You see, when we do that, when we actually navigate our worldview to put self at the center, to try and find that purpose, value, dignity, and worth, we're already building upon sandy foundations.

Self at the center is one of the loudest voices and horrendous agendas that our culture falls subject to.

When we start with self-gain, self-promotion, self-care, we become self-absorbed.

And the inevitable fruit of planting that seed in our framework for life is that self-comfort becomes our applied ethic.

Every decision we make, the worldview that we develop becomes foundationally built upon how does it benefit me?

And so the way that we navigate culture, the ethics that we hold, the standards that we place upon ourselves becomes so subjective, some so ambiguous, becomes so fluid because the qualifier is self.

Brothers and sisters, for those who have been formed, established, loved, forgiven, and redeemed in the mind of God before our existence was ever even considered by your parents or their parents, or before Adam and Eve, our first parents, when they forsook the Lord in the garden, we must start with our existence as a valuable extension with a far greater center than self.

And when we do, our hearts are transformed and our lives are valued with a different scale than the scale of self.

The Lord knows you.

The Lord is with you because he formed you.

This is true for every person in this room.

Every single human ever conceived throughout time, this is true.

If we were to summarize verses one through six, it would be this that the Lord knows you.

The depth of God's interest, knowledge of, and attention given to us is unattainable.

As David's trying to articulate the way that the Lord thinks about him, he says that it's unattainable.

I can try and put words to it, I can try to communicate it to the best of my finite ability, but at the end of the day, it's unattainable to imagine and understand and comprehend how much the Lord thinks about you.

His knowledge of you, his attention given to you.

Surely that knowledge isn't lost on us.

But if we're honest, it's so easily forgotten.

We're numb to God's amazing considerations of our existence.

He knows the numbers of hair on your head.

He formed the colors of your eyes before you were born.

He knew and established how tall you would be if you would even have hair at 36.

If this God of the Bible lives, how amazing is it that he might even consider me?

Yet David says so much more than just a simple consideration, so much more than a simple glancing thought, but deep, affectionate meditation on our being.

If this God of the universe does know me, then I am drawn to know him.

In my very existence, eternity is built and woven into the very fabric of our being.

And there's this reality where we're drawn to know the origin of our existence.

And we we get it wrong as we navigate this world, as we try to place self at the center, or we put other false gods and idols in the place of the true and living God.

But if I am made by him, if I am known by him, then I am drawn to know him?

What if I made it my ambition to know him and to see him as he truly is?

What if I made it my ambition to know him and to see me as he sees me?

What if I made it my ambition to know him and to see others as he sees them?

You see, when this is our posture, our prayer and devotion, then we actually join David's heart to pray as he concludes in this very psalm: search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my thoughts.

See where I'm grievous and lead me to life.

Verses 7 through 12 kind of reveal to us that the Lord is with you.

The Lord is with you.

Nowhere can we flee to evade the present hand of God.

There's nowhere that we can go.

In life and in death, God is with us.

Some make the mistake of assuming that God is actually absent even in hell.

But no, his presence is there.

The fullness of his wrath is present.

There is no place in all of creation that God is not.

We cannot escape his outstretched hand.

David gets this.

Jonah knows this.

If we understand anything about the story of Jonah, is that he tried to flee the hand of God.

He tried to run from his grasp, and God in his not so subtle hand repented his path.

Do you get this?

Do you get that God's hand is unescapable?

But, Christian, if you are in Christ, do you get that the Spirit is not just with you, but within you?

God's presence dwells in your very being.

The beauty of the New Testament church is that we are no longer a people.

We no longer serve a God who inhabits the praises of his people, but we serve a God who inhabits the people of his praise.

God is not just with us, but the person of the Holy Spirit who is fully God is in us.

And for those not in Christ Jesus, for those who have not trusted in his salvation work, the nature of God is still with you.

In that we were all created in his image.

We all bear this resemblance of our Maker.

God is with you in the sense of the image of which you bear.

While it might be perverted and marred, while it has been twisted due to sin, it's still intact.

It's not been destroyed.

It's not been removed from you.

It's still present.

And here's why that matters.

You're never alone.

You are never alone.

Now we wrestle with this, right?

Some of us we can feel lonely in a room full of people.

Some of us in this room feel lonely constantly because we're literally lonely.

No one is around in our day-to-day rhythm of life.

But the truth remains that the Lord is with you.

In brokenness and loneliness, the Lord is there.

In pain, the Lord is there.

In celebration, the Lord is there.

And this is how the least of these parables holds up.

When you interact with others, it's as if you interact with God Himself, because He's with us always.

Nothing is outside of Him, nothing is hidden from Him, nothing is beyond the stretching of His hand.

What Jesus tells us is that this is true.

And the way that you treat the ones you would otherwise dismiss, made in His image, present, reflecting who His nature is, is the way that you treat the Lord Himself.

You see, the revelation that nothing is done in secret can be either frightening or comforting.

No matter what or where, the Lord is present, we can lean on him, cry to him, we can shake our fists in frustration at him.

But ultimately we're called to walk as the children that we truly are.

With the sweetness of our Father's hand guiding us and shepherding us.

Verses 13 through 18 informs us that the Lord formed you.

God alone determines, creates, and gives life.

You see, life begins in the mind of God.

We don't have to get into political discussions, philosophical discussions, scientific discussions.

It's not we're dismissing those things.

It's not that we're afraid to engage in those things.

It's simply that what is your authority?

If your authority, as it should be as a Christian who is serving the living God, then your authority should be the revelation of this word.

And what this word reveals to us is that your existence began when God in eternity past determined that you'd be conceived.

That's where life begins.

In the mind of God, sovereign king and ruler over all, before he laid the foundations of this world, determined in his will you would be conceived.

And that is true with every being that has ever been conceived in this earth.

Life begins in the mind of God.

At any point in time, we try to take it away from that truth.

We try to place sovereignty and power in our own hands.

You see, God uses the seed of man.

Life shows up in the womb of woman, but that life has been long established.

It's just simply being revealed at birth.

The problem with us, though, is that we place self at the authoritative center for determining right in life.

We place self at the authoritative center for determining right in life.

Of course, this text takes us to such cultural tension.

Of course, this steps into political divide.

Of course, we are drawn to consider where do we come from, where life begins.

But I again argue the political divide around life has nothing to do with authenticity.

It has nothing to do with gestation.

It has nothing to do with sensory perception, early, mid, late term, or politics at all.

It's everything to do with who is the authoritative center.

Is it me or is it God?

To murder is to unjustly kill human life formed in the mind of God.

Let me say that again.

To murder is to unjustly kill human life formed in the mind of God.

Is killing the unborn before they even have a chance to see the light of day murder?

Absolutely.

Abortion is not scientific.

Abortion is not health care.

Abortion is not compassion.

Abortion is murder.

Is it complex?

Sure.

Is it deep pain?

Definitely.

But to claim politics or woman's rights at the expense of another human's rights, of the utterly helpless future man or woman image bearer of God will not stand.

To take their life for your right to be comfortable is outright grievous.

And to be a nation as affluent and informed as us, and to so callously dismiss the innocent life of the least of these is to heap judgment upon our heads.

Keep your laws out of my uterus, won't hold up when we meet God.

And he asked, How did you care for the least of these?

No.

The procedure that smashes, cuts, rips, tears, sucks the brains and parts of human beings through tubes.

Humans made in mind of God, in the image of that God, as his crown of creation isn't a political front, and everyone deep down knows this.

No, the front on which that war is waged is on the battlefield of self-absorption and comfort.

I'm at the center of the universe.

And my comfort matters more than what has been conceived in the mind of God.

But, church, self-discovery doesn't happen by reflecting on the greatness of created things.

We have to throw away the mirror.

It comes by knowing whose we are.

This means that that baby with downs, that adult with a disability, that kid with different skin, that tiny human inside of a mama's womb are each and every the crown of God's creation.

The one with the best job, the one with no job, the one living in the nice house, the one without a house, the clean and the addict, that person old and feeble, no longer able to contribute, and that strong, hardworking young woman in her twenties, the educated and the illiterate, the fool and the wise, from Adam and Eve to the babies conceived just moments ago throughout the ends of the earth, each and every embryonic formation to the very last breath of he who has lived for a hundred years.

Every single one of us are both the least of these, and by Christ's work his crown of glory.

When self is the center for determining right in life, we lament rightly.

And we see this, we lament rightly with the victims of school shootings or police brutality or civil domestic and violence.

But when the same mouth we herald our own voices at the expense of the unborn.

But if God has fashioned human life in his very mind, if he knows us, is with us, because he formed us, we can't live with that inconsistently built around our fallen, broken ability to choose value in life.

We don't live in cultural narrative.

We live by the word of God.

We hold in tension the real creature of the word, understanding that all humans are both made in his image, which has intrinsic dignity, value, and worth, and are totally depraved and marred by sin in our entire being.

Both of these things are true.

But the beauty of Christ is this: Jesus became the least of us so that he might rescue those of us who are the least.

This is the beauty of Christ.

Trusting the work of Jesus alone is what makes us his.

We were dead in our sin.

We were helpless.

We were the very least.

But Christ, in his grace and mercy, he met us where we were and picked us up from the tomb of which we resided in, giving us life and purpose, giving eternity meaning in our very chest.

God forms, but Christ's work reforms.

God makes, but Christ's work remakes.

God creates new, but Christ renews.

And has made new people, we're being called to simply reflect the very nature of the image of which we bear, to go and to rescue, to go and to show mercy.

In Jesus is the forgiveness of all sin.

And in Jesus is life eternal.

A word to you who have participated in abortion.

I don't want you walking out of here hopeless.

I don't want you walking out of here cut so deep that no healing can mend that wound.

There is forgiveness in Christ Jesus.

And the beauty of the gospel is that Christ doesn't come approaching this act of murder by just sweeping it under the rug.

That's not forgiveness.

Christ deals with that act.

Christ confronts that act.

And the fullness of God's wrath is poured out on that act.

But the beauty of the gospel is that it's poured out on Jesus instead of you.

And that act of murder is nailed to the cross so that you don't have to walk around carrying that burden any longer.

It was a life for a life.

Christ gave up his so that you could gain yours.

And so when you walk out of this, it's again, it's not dismissing the weight and the nature of what you did.

It's not sweeping it under the rug.

It's not acting like it didn't happen.

The gospel is cosmically confrontational, but the beauty is that he doesn't come at you to conquer you with sword and spear.

Today you can walk forgiven.

Free to love like you've never been able to love before.

To love the least of these, and every other these in a way that can only come from God's unending, never-ceasing, always and forever love for you.

So, how will we live this out?

If this was truth and we were to embrace this, here's a couple questions of reflection that I have for you this morning.

Number one, who do you dismiss as having less value than you?

And how does it show up?

If we're honest, we all do this to some measure.

We all have people in our lives and in our minds that we find less valuable.

And it impacts the way that we treat them, it impacts the way that we show mercy to them, it impacts the way that we're able to actually give the gospel to them.

For some of us, it's the other people standing on the other side of politics.

For some of us, it's those in different socioeconomic classes than us.

For some of us, it's those with different race than us.

For some of us, it's those with different worldviews than us.

If we're honest, honestly, as Christians, more so we get wrapped up in people having a different worldview in us, that we're unable to extend mercy, we're unable to get our hands working gospel mission because we dismiss them in their very value as an image bearer of God because they can't see through the lens of which we could not see before the Spirit gave us new eyes to see the truth of God's holiness and righteousness?

How can we get so angry at them?

You were them?

Can that not drive grace?

Can that not drive mercy?

Are we gonna continually sit back and chuck bombs over the wall of culture that we've built up?

How does reorienting your life around its origin, which is from the mind and hand of God, shape your love for others?

What would it do to us?

How would it transform us if we realize we're not made for ourselves?

We're made for him.

And we have to tirelessly search what brings him glory, what brings him joy, what reflects the nature he put in us as his image bearers.

When we understand our origin, when we reorient our life around that, then we can say, God, my life is yours, my bank account is yours, my home is yours, my children are yours, my ministry is yours, everything I have is yours.

It's not for my gain, it's not for my comfort.

It's so that I can be equipped to love others.

And lastly, if the Lord knows you and is with you because he formed you, then what in this world could stop you and your love for others?

There's nothing, nothing that could stop us to love others recklessly.

At the Ramas Home, we have these five truths that we hold to try and reorient our own lives constantly and try to navigate how in the world do we live this life faithfully to what we believe God's called us to do.

When you walk into our home, there's this little wooden plaque and it has them listed.

It says, This in order of priority and purpose.

We love God, we love our family, we love truth, we love the church, and we love recklessly.

I want it to be ingrained in the DNA of our family, that to love people is going to cost us.

It's gonna cost us comfort, it's gonna cost us money, it's gonna cost us resources, it's gonna cost us emotions, it's gonna cost us deeply.

But if we understand that God knows us, and he sees us in our condition, that God is with us, that he has not abandoned us, and that he formed us, man, what could ever stop us?

And we still live at times in disbelief of these truths, and we try to white knuckle the junk that we have because we think somehow it gives us purpose or safety or comfort or whatever.

But I want to get to a place, and I think deep down you want to get to a place where nothing, nothing could stop us from loving others, and that we would run with mercy in our hands and the gospel in our mouth to see the world transformed for his glory and the joy of his people.

Let's pray.

Father, I pray that you would soften our hearts to hear the truth of your word.

Father, let us see the inherent dignity, value, and worth in every image bearer, no matter their worldview, their politics, their socioeconomic status, their race, their gender, nothing should eat away or erode our ability to see them wholly and fully as representatives of you, as crown of glory of your creation.

And Lord, for those of us in this room that have participated in abortion, let us not see bloodstained hands, but let us see a bloodstained cross and run and cling to the hope in Christ alone.

Who takes our sin, who washes us clean, and who enables us to love in so unselfish and unself centered ways.

Let us know forgiveness, let us know freedom.

It's in the powerful name of your Son Jesus we pray.

Amen.