This past Wednesday, Scott Evans Dekraai, got out of his car in Seal Beach (CA) shot a man who was sitting in his SUV talking on his cell phone then entered a beauty salon where his ex-wife worked and opened fire, shooting at point blank his ex-wife and eight other people. Six died immediately, two died at Memorial Hospital and one is still in critical condition. One newspaper headline stated clearly, ‘Senseless Waste’ is overwhelming.
I agree completely. This shooting was completely senseless and it was a waste of human life and I just want to know why.
In preparation for this message I re-read the chapter on the sanctity of life from Charles Colson’s book Faith in which he states, “Christians believe that men and women wre created intentionally and purposefully in God’s image. God proves how dear men and women are to Him throughout the whole drama of human history. He acts consistently to bring the human person on whom he lavished such gifts back into right relationship with Him—even sending His Son to give His life for every human being…Christians propose to society a biblical humanism ‘deeply grounded in the dignity of the human person at every stage of development, disadvantage, or decline.’”
Of course I’ve also been reading and studying Psalm 139, a psalm that I believe speaks to that kind of biblical humanism with such words as (verses 13-16):
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
You can see why the shooting in Seal Beach has me so distraught, even angry.
I just don’t understand how anyone can have such a huge disregard for life that they could take the lives of 8 innocent people.
And I understand that this senseless act is extremely disturbing and evil, but I have to be careful not to set myself too far apart from that kind of disregard for the gift of life.
I find it disconcerting to realize that the times I am most thoughtful about life and thankful for life are the times when I am faced with death.
That’s a very sad and disturbing confession, and I thank God not everyone thinks like I do.
This weekend I asked my internet friends on the social network Facebook,
What makes you stop or when do you stop and realize that life is a gift?
Hear are some of the answers I received, without naming names.
Again: What makes you stop or when do you stop and realize that life is a gift?
• Realizing the depth of my sin and the punishment I deserve because of it, makes me realize that every brea a golf course at sunrise, and meals with family and friends.
• Every morning he wakes me up.
• Watching sunsets when camping, births, deaths, weddings.
• When someone dies or when a baby is born
• When one of your best friends loses their battle to cancer but comes out victorious because they are with Jesus. Their life was a gift and her reward is now Jesus.
• When your pins are knocked out from under you.
• When you realize that God gave you life and we should Praise him in everything,
• Going into the Operating room I told the Lord how glad I was that he was my friend and how much just placing my life into his hands meant to me at that moment.
• When a situation arises and you suddenly wake up to the fact that you have no ability to control things. It is all in God's hands!
Ask Congregation: How would some of you answer that question?
Life, as precious and wonderful and glorious as it is, is too often just something we live without much thought and, regrettably, without much thanks. We don’t see our lives as much of anything special…it just is what it is.
The problem is that’s not in line at all with how God views life – ours and everyone else’s. As Colson’s book reminded me, “Created by God, and with His purpose for us clear, human life is sacred.”
Human life is sacred! No matter what we are made to think (by ourselves or by others), life is sacred! And if life is sacred then we are certainly more than what we give ourselves credit for.
But what too often happens is we look in the mirror and just…sigh. Or we look at our list of achievements and think, “That’s it?” We stand alongside others that we consider smarter, better looking, richer, more spiritual and wonder why God had to use us to show the world He has a sense of humor.
Illus.: A little girl was visiting over at grandpa’s house. She crawled up into his lap and said “Grandpa, did God make you?”
He said “Oh, yes, my dear, God created me a long time ago.”
She said “Did God make me, too?”
He said “Oh, yes, my dear, God created you a little while ago.”
She thought about that for a moment, then she said “God’s been doing better work lately hasn’t He?”
That’s a girl who appreciates the way God made her!
But not everyone feels that way.
As one pastor told his congregation,”… instead of showing appreciation to God for how He created us, we criticize God for how He DIDN’T create us! Instead of praising Him that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, we blame Him for not following our specifications.”
We need to go deeper into life, deeper into this gift from the Creator who has made us and placed his image inside us and stamped our lives with his holiness.
We’re going to do that by going through Psalm 139.
Psalm 139 was written by David when his reputation was being dragged through the mud by King Saul. Saul was spreading the lie that David was a traitor, and David had no one he could really turn to.
Instead of slinking into a corner and allowing that lie to eat away at his self-worth and confidence, David stops and ponders his life that God has so lovingly prepared for him, shaped for him through experiences both good and bad, and also considers how he has this wonderful connection to the Creator.
In short, the bad in his life made him stop and think - Life is a precious gift.
Today, let the truths David discovered ring in your own hearts.
Psalms 139:1-6 (NIV)
1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. 5 You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
1. God knows each of us personally – and loves us anyways!
2. This is both a conviction and a comfort.
3. He is our Father who has great hopes and plans for each of us – we are not without purpose!
Illus. – In a baby dedication we lay hands upon that child and pray for his life, his future and his spiritual well-being. God has laid his hands on us with tender and firm assurance.
4. God wants our lives to be meaningful and well-intentioned.
Psalms 139:7-12 (NIV)
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
1. There is no escape from God - you can’t hide from him, run away from him, or in any other way elude him.
Illus. of God’s Omnipresence:
In the past decade an extraordinary claim has captivated cosmologists: that the expanding universe we see around us is not the only one; that billions of other universes are out there, too. There is not one universe—there is a multiverse… In this view, not only is our planet one among many, but even our entire universe is insignificant on the cosmic scale of things. It is just one of countless universes, each doing its own thing.
Astronomers are able to see out to a distance of about 42 billion light-years, our cosmic visual horizon. We have no reason to suspect the universe stops there. Beyond it could be many—even infinitely many—domains much like the one we see. Each has a different initial distribution of matter, but the same laws of physics operate in all. (Scientific American, Aug. 2011, “Does the Multiverse Really Exist?”)
2. But why would we want to when he loves us so much?
David realized that no matter how hard he might try to remove himself from God, God is always there to what? Punish him? No! Drag him back home? No! Shame him? No!
Verse 10, “…even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”
3. We need to let God shine like the noon day upon us and enlighten us to our own foolishness in trying to “be on our own.”
4. Here we have this H-U-G-E God and he wants our lives to be filled with his presence.
Psalms 139:13-16 (NIV)
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
1. God has created each and every one of us; he has “knit us together”’; simplistic? I don’t think so…
Illus. – “knit together”: Histology is the study of the microscopic structure of animal and plant tissues. Hystos means fabric, tissue, knitting. When scientists started to look at the body in a microscope, they were amazed to learn that it’s woven—that everywhere they look, they see weaving.
Our skin is made up of calogen fibers that are very tough. They are so strong, they are stronger than steel for the same cross-sectional diameter but yet look—it’s stretchy—how is that possible?
It’s possible because of the knitting—the way they are woven together. You weave one way, it’s not stretchy. That’s the kind of architecture we have in the eyeball so it doesn’t change shape. You weave another way—like a double-knit suit, it can be stretchy. The Lord knows that!
2. Each and every one of us is beautiful and unique
“Fearfully and wonderfully made” can literally mean (listen) “Fearfully and wonderfully set apart!” and to be “set apart” is to be recognized as holy
3. From the beginning of our lives, God has known us and set us apart, from “unformed substance” (embryo) to that little baby on the sonogram picture with fingers and toes, dancing in our mother’s wombs
4. Every day of our lives is numbered and known by God and given to us as a gift to be opened and lived. EVERY DAY FIND A WAY to live your life intentionally and thankfully
5. God wants our lives to be as beautiful and unique as we are; life is too short and wonderful to let it be average and just slip by; find a way to make it special!
Psalms 139:17-18 (NIV)
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.
1. God never stops thinking about you – you are always on his mind
2. Our heavenly Father is never settled with “good enough” for us; so why do we settle for “good enough” for ourselves?
3. The thoughts he thinks about you are “precious”; they are for your good and always in your favor
4. He knows we are all “diamonds in the rough”
Illus.: Max Lucado (His Story, Your Story), “Are you puzzled by the challenges of your days? Then see yourself as an uncut jewel and God as a lapidary. He is polishing you for your place in his kingdom.”
5. God wants our lives to be recognizable reflections of his love, and nobody is excluded – young, old or in-between.
Psalms 139:19-22 (NIV)
19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
1. There are people with an evil intent towards life and it comes from an evil intent toward God.
2. There are those who have a total disregard for life because they have a total disregard for God
3. They want to try to separate God from our lives and if we let them then we are allowing life to become nothing but a flicker, a fading shadow rather than the beautiful, powerful, meaningful, holy gift from God that it is.
4. To think like them is to go the way of bloodthirsty men and become the enemy of God.
5. God wants our lives to overcome the wickedness of this world by taking a stand against the evil done against the unborn, the disabled, the elderly, the ill and the weak, declaring that these, too, are fearfully and wonderfully made!
Psalms 139:23-24 (NIV)
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
1. What was a proclamation in verse 1 becomes a deeper request in these verses
2. “Search me…know my heart” – look deep within me, Lord; know me completely;
3. “test me…know my anxious thoughts” – the litmus test of faith is “Who am I trusting more – God…or myself?” ; trusting myself causes anxiety but trusting God brings me peace; which am I – anxious or peaceful?
4. “See if there is any offensive way in me” – offensive to God, offensive to others, offensive to myself
5. “Lead me in the way everlasting” – our daily prayer should be,
“Show me, Lord, that there is more to this life than I can see or imagine; by your spirit make me willing in this limited lifetime to move towards the place you have prepared for me, a place of eternal life; daily convince me to follow you with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.”
6. God wants our lives to be pure and protected and deepened by his promise that life is more than “just here and now.”
Conclusion
I was reading about a girl in 2nd grade named Martha Taft. Her assignment was to give a speech to the kids about her family. She confidently introduced herself to her new second grade classmates. She said "My name is Martha Bowers Taft. My great-grandfather was President of the United States. My grandfather was a United States Senator. My father is the Ambassador to Ireland." She then puffed out her chest and proudly declared, "and I am a Brownie!”
That girl knew exactly who she was. As believers in Christ, we know who WE are. We are God’s servants. We are precious in His sight. We have been fearfully and wonderfully made to make the world a better place, and we need to live our lives determined to make that happen.
Life in God is a life that matters and has purpose and beauty.
Life in God is deep, wonderful and exciting.
Choose that life…every day, beginning now.
