A. In 1985, a professor at the Illinois Medical School in Chicago decided to determine the value of a human being.
1. He began with a chemical analysis of the human body.
2. The average adult human body is made up of 5 pounds of calcium, 1.5 pounds of phosphorous, 9 ounces of potassium, 6 ounces of sulfur, 6 ounces of sodium, an ounce of magnesium, and less than an ounce each of iron, copper, and iodine.
3. The value of all these elements of a human totaled $8.37. That is no way to measure our value!
B. What is the real value of a human being?
1. Today, Sunday, January 18, 2026 is designated as Sanctity of Human Life Sunday.
a. It is the annual day when churches are encouraged to reaffirm the value of human life from conception onward.
2. Tomorrow, Monday, January 19, 2026 is designated as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
a. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a federal holiday in the United States observed on the third Monday of January each year.
b. Dr. King, as you know, was the chief spokesperson for nonviolent activism during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, which protested racial discrimination in federal and state law and civil society.
c. Tragically, Dr. King was assassinated on April 4th, 1968, but his efforts and the Civil Rights Movement led to many groundbreaking legislative reforms in the United States concerning racial discrimination.
3. In light of these two important days, back to back on our calendar, I want us to spend some time today thinking about the sanctity of human life and the importance of valuing all people equally.
4. I want us to think about how these values come from God who created us in His image.
5. I also want us to think about our calling to love all people like God loves all people.
C. If we are not careful, then we can allow these important issues and values to become a political platform and tool, rather than allow them to be at the center of our faith and our commitment to love as God loves, which is where they belong.
1. I want to encourage us to think about the implications of these truths and the kinds of godly attitudes and actions that should come forth from these truths.
2. What does it really mean to be prolife? Surely it means more than being pro-birth.
3. What does it mean to say that there is sanctity in all human life?
4. What does it mean for all people to have equal value and equal rights?
5. What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself?
6. Who is your neighbor?
D. I want to begin by challenging us to ask ourselves: Is there anyone who we devalue in our heart and mind?
1. Is there anyone who is not made in God’s image?
2. Is there anyone who doesn’t have the right to life and the right to be cared about and cared for?
3. Is there anyone who Jesus didn’t die for and anyone who God doesn’t want to redeem?
4. I am going to show a series of pictures and ask the question: How does God want us to value and love these people?
a. How does God want us to value and love the unborn children in the womb?
b. How does God want us to value and love children with special needs?
c. How does God want us to value and love children in poverty?
d. How does God want us to value and love children in orphanages?
e. How does God want us to value and love the elderly?
f. How does God want us to value and love foreigners/immigrants – here and abroad?
g. How does God want us to value and love the LGBTQ+ community?
h. How does God want us to value and love those addicted to drugs or alcohol or pornography?
i. How does God want us to value and love drug dealers and workers in the sex industry?
j. How does God want us to value and love prisoners and death row inmates?
k. How does God want us to value and love your enemies – people who have hurt you, are opposed to you, or seek to destroy you?
E. Let’s me repeat the questions I asked before showing the series of pictures.
1. Is there anyone who we devalue in our heart and mind?
2. Is there anyone who is not made in God’s image?
3. Is there anyone who doesn’t have the right to life and the right to be cared about and cared for?
4. Is there anyone who Jesus didn’t die for and anyone who God doesn’t want to redeem?
F. Our belief in and commitment to the sanctity of human life, to the value of every life and to equal rights for everyone from the cradle to the grave, from the womb to the tomb, comes from God Himself.
1. Human beings are the special creation of God in God’s own image.
2. Human beings are not a cosmic accident but are the result of a carefully executed creation by an eternal God.
3. Human dignity is derived from God.
4. Human beings are finite, dependent, contingent creatures who are assigned a high value by their Creator.
5. Genesis 1:26-27 says: Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:26–27)
6. Creation in the image of God is what sets humans apart from all other creatures.
7. The stamp of the image and likeness of God upon us as humans is what connects us with God and with each other in a unique way.
G. Having a Pro-Life perspective starts with knowing that our Creator God is love and knowing that God loves every person.
1. When we say that God loves every person we are saying that God values every person and that God wants the very best for every person.
2. That’s why Jesus said: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn. 3:16, NIV)
a. God’s love and offer is for whoever – anyone and everyone.
H. Look with me at this long section from the first letter of the apostle John: 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. … 16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. … 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister. (1 Jn. 3:7-12, 16, 19-21)
1. What do we learn from this passage?
a. First, we learn that God is love and that love comes from God.
b. Second, we learn that God demonstrated His love for us by sending His Son to save us.
c. Third, we learn that because God loves us, then we must love Him and love each other.
d. Fourth, we learn that if we don’t love each other, then we cannot truly love God – the one who loves God must love his brother and sister.
e. Finally, we learn that if we do love each other, then God remains in us and His love is made complete through us.
2. All of this is so basic and yet is so central to everything about our faith and about pleasing God.
I. When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment in the law is, He replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.” (Mt. 22:37-40)
1. Rather than answering with a single greatest command, Jesus gave two commands and linked them together in a way that makes them one.
2. When we love God with our whole selves and love our neighbor, then we will have done what is the will of God.
J. In Luke 10, Luke tells us that an expert in the law asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. (Lk. 10:25-37)
1. Jesus answered with a question: “What do you think the law says to do to inherit eternal life?”
2. The man replied with: “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.”
3. To which Jesus replied: “Good answer! Put that into practice.”
4. Wanting to justify himself, the man asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
5. Jesus answered his question with the story of the Good Samaritan.
6. Who was the neighbor to the man who had been beaten by thieves and left for dead?
a. Was it the priest who saw him and passed by on the other side of the road?
b. Was it the Levite who saw him and passed by on the other side of the road?
c. No, the one who ended up being the neighbor was a Samaritan (Samaritans and Jews were each other’s sworn enemies).
d. But when the Samaritan saw the helpless man, he didn’t think about past hostilities nor about personal costs, rather all he thought about was “this man needs help and I should help him.”
e. That’s what neighbors do and that’s what I would want him to do for me if our roles were reversed.
7. Jesus told that expert in the law to go and do the same as that Good Samaritan had done.
8. Jesus wants us to do the same.
9. Who is the neighbor that I should be loving in the way that I love myself? Anyone / everyone.
K. In Matthew 25, Jesus gave a chilling depiction of how God evaluates those who are sheep and those who are goats – those who are sheep inherit the kingdom God prepared and the goats are those who face the eternal fire of hell.
1. According to the parable, what determined who were the sheep and who were the goats?
2. It had to do with how a person treated the most vulnerable and invisible people of society.
3. Jesus said: 41 “Then he will also say to those on the left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels! 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger and you didn’t take me in; I was naked and you didn’t clothe me, sick and in prison and you didn’t take care of me.’
44 “Then they too will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or without clothes, or sick, or in prison, and not help you?’
45 “Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’” (Mt. 25:41-45)
L. When we love like God loves and when we value people the way God values them, then we will be concerned about and compassionate towards the most vulnerable and those who are suffering.
1. Having a truly pro-life perspective means valuing and being concerned about all people.
2. Being pro-life means that we care about the unborn child in a mother’s womb and we care about the mother who is carrying a child that she is not sure she wants or can care for.
3. Being pro-life means that we care about the poor, and about orphans and widows.
4. Being pro-life means that we care about racial justice and economic and educational opportunities for everyone.
5. Being pro-life means that we care about present day slavery and those who are being human trafficked in the sex industry or for other economic exploitation.
6. Being pro-life means we care about those who have AIDS or who have gender identity issues.
7. Being pro-life means that we are not prejudice in any way, rather we value people of all color, nationality, religion, orientation, or anything else.
8. Being pro-life means that care about immigrants, whether they are in our country legally or illegally – either way, their lives matter and their lives have value and dignity.
9. Being pro-life means we care about people who live without freedom and those who are incarcerated justly and unjustly.
10. Being pro-life means that we mourn the loss of any life taken by disease or accident, violence, suicide, war, or execution.
11. Being pro-life means that we see inherent value in every life from those who have life-long disabilities, physically or mentally or emotionally, those with chronic illnesses, and those who can’t take care of themselves at any point in their lives and especially at the end of their lives.
M. When we affirm life in all stages and forms, we create a culture of life and love, respect and compassion.
1. We acknowledge that each person has inherent worth and that life is worth protecting.
2. When we care for “the least of these” then we are valuing the ones God values, and we are loving like God loves.
3. In reality, we may not agree on how best to care for everyone and how to meet everyone’s needs, but we agree that everyone should be cared about and cared for.
4. We may not agree on what is the best way to provide healthcare for everyone, but we agree that sick people matter.
5. We may not agree on how best to help those in poverty, but we agree that people in poverty matter.
6. We may not agree about same sex marriage, LGBTQ+ and transgender treatments and surgery, but we agree that people with those lifestyles, attractions and orientations matter.
7. We may not agree on how best to overcome racial and other inequalities of the past, but we agree that people who have suffered from inequality matter.
8. We may not agree about how to address legal and illegal immigration, but we agree that the lives of immigrants matter.
9. And it goes without saying, that whenever we interact with those who have different viewpoints that ours, we treat them with love, civility, compassion, and grace.
N. We are called to love – love is the answer, the attitude, and the action.
1. We are to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. (Mt. 22:37-29)
2. We are to love one another (as commanded in some 50 NT passages).
3. We are to be imitators of God as dearly loved children and we are to live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. (Eph. 5:1-2)
4. We are to love, not in word or speech, but in action and in truth. (1 Jn. 3:18)
5. Like the good Samaritan, let’s be on the lookout for ways to serve others in big ways and small.
6. Let’s have the mind and heart of God towards all people, because all people are made in God’s image and all people are loved by God, and so must we.
M. Finally, if we are really pro-life, then we will do what we can to help all people come to know Jesus and be saved.
1. 1 Tim. 2:4 tells us that God wants all people to come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved.
2. God is pro-abundant life and pro-eternal life, and we should also want everyone to receive the abundant life and the eternal life that comes through Jesus.
