Taking Life Seriously
Jeremiah 1:5
“My intent was to carry out my duty as a doctor, to end their suffering. Unfortunately, that entailed, in their cases, ending of the life.”
Jack Kevorkian
What do you believe about that statement?
What do you believe about abortion?
Do you know what you believe about abortion? Euthanasia? Cloning? Other issues we will face?
These are not just headlines; 1-4 have had an abortion. 1 of 10 in the church.
What does it mean to take life seriously? Does the sanctity of life transcend abortion?
Jeremiah 1:5
"I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesman to the world."
*GOD TAKES LIFE SERIOUSLY; HE HAS A PLAN FOR YOU*
He is the Creator (despite what Evolution says)
When does God begin taking a life seriously?
God considered Jeremiah a person before conception.
God knew you before conception too. He is no respecter of persons.
He planned great things for you.
How much more a person Jeremiah was after conception!
John the Baptist: filled with the Spirit during second trimester. Tissue can’t be filled with the Spirit; only people can.
God takes life so seriously that He sent His very own Son to develop within the womb of a virgin.
*GOD TAKES LIFE SERIOUSLY; HE HAS CAREFULLY FORMED YOU FOR HIS PLAN*
Hebrew word formed in Jeremiah 1:5 is the image of a potter shaping the clay
Same idea as the forming of Adam in Genesis (from the dust of ground)
Psalm 139
13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous – and how well I know it. 15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. 16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
David knew that God formed him in the womb.
God formed you too.
Jeremiah 1:5
He knew you (knew in Hebrew is “yada”)
Today it means: “whatever”
Then it meant a personal intimate knowledge of someone
He formed you to be a temple filled, like John the Baptist, with His Holy Spirit
This distinguishes us from the rest of Creation.
So we ought to take life seriously b/c He has a plan for us and formed us for it.
But . . .
HE HAS A PLAN FOR THE UNBORN
*HE HAS CAREFULLY FORMED THE UNBORN FOR HIS PLAN*
1) A preacher and his wife living in extreme poverty. They have 14 children and she is pregnant again.
2) A mother has TB and the father has the sniffles. The family has four children already. One has TB, two are deaf and one is blind. Would you consider abortion?
3) A thirteen year old black girl is raped by a white man.
4) A teenage girl becomes pregnant but not by her fiancée. He is very upset. Would you consider abortion?
If you aborted in the first case you have killed John Wesley. If you aborted in the second case you killed Beethoven. If you aborted in the third case you killed Ethel Waters the black gospel singer. If in the third case you aborted, you killed Jesus of Nazareth.
Isn’t abortion rare? That’s what some liberal politicians have suggested should be our goal. I guess we aren’t doing such a good job.
AMERICAN WAR CASUALTIES
REVOLUTIONARY WAR 25,324
CIVIL WAR 498,332
WORLD WAR II 407,316
KOREAN WAR 54,246
VIETNAM WAR 56,655
GULF WAR 293
WAR ON THE UNBORN 31,000,000 since abortion was legalized in 1973. (6 times the number of casualties in all the wars combined). Abortion isn’t rare.
The saddest part . . .
Research from Planned Parenthood
• 75% say a baby would interfere with their lives
• 66% could not afford the baby
• 50% did not want to be single parents or had problems in a current relationship
• 4% health conditions
• 1% were victims of rape or incest
Our job is to reach these people with the good news.
Children are a heritage of the Lord!
Happy is the man that has his quiver full of them!
Taking life seriously doesn’t start and end with the issue of abortion.
Being PRO-LIFE means more than holding signs up at a rally.
It means having an ethic of life that permeates all of life not just one issue like abortion.
It ought to affect the way we look at other issues: war, life, death, and ethics.
It means first living a life that proves you take life seriously and sharing that with people in the course of everyday happenings.
Pastor Vinnie Cappetta, PhD
Crossroads Community Church
Framingham, MA
crosscommchurch.org
