Where Did You Come From?

Where Did You Come From?

Psalm 139:13-15

January 25, 2009

This is Sanctitity of Life Sunday. We are going to take a look at God’s view of life and the value that God has for all life. The primary scripture comes from Psalm 139:13-15, which was read earlier.

Here we are reminded of how precious children are to God. That each person including all of us here are knit together in the womb. God knows us and has known before we were ever conceived. He has known us before time began.

One pastor preaching on this topic inadvertently misquoted scripture when he said, “Children are an heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the loom is his reward.” Kind of ruined the moment.

The title of this sermon is, “Where Did You Come From?” I think this is very pertinent to know where life originated from. It is very pertinent to understand that life comes from God. It originated with God. It originated with Christ. For Colossians 1:15-20 tells us that Jesus:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

By Jesus everything was created. By Jesus you came into existence. Everything including our lives was created by him and for him. He is before all things and in Jesus all things are held together. He keeps us from falling apart.

Two weeks ago, we looked at the vastness of the universe and the greatness of our God who is a star-breathing God. We kind of saw how indescribly huge God really is. This week we are going to go in the opposite direction. We are going to look at how amazingly detailed God has been in his creation especially in creating us. Even though the universe is incredibly vast and bigger than we can conceive, we are not insignificant to God.

A teacher was reviewing with some seventh graders about the three states of matter. Think back and you might remember that matter can exist in solids, liquid, and vapor. To test them, she asked, “In what three states does water exist?” One boy said, “It’s in all fifty states, isn’t it?”

Let’s look at your life.

Your life started as the joining of two cells. One from your mother and one from your father. That cell from your dad made in an incredible journey. One of thousands. Each cell carries 23 chromosomes. When the cell from your dad and the cell from your mom met, they formed one cell, joined together to form your DNA. Your DNA carries the basic code that tells how you would be formed. How God would knit you. A brand new DNA code. Using four character nucleotides to write out the 3 billion character descriptions *your genomes.” They described who God ordained you to be. If take the DNA out of that single cell, it would be 6 feet long. 3 billion characters. If I read your DNA reading 1 character per second it would take me 96 years to read your description. Isn’t it any wonder that we can never learn all there is to know about someone in a lifetime of marriage?

When your cell was formed, it was completely and totally unique. There has never been someone with the same combination of characters and code. Then that one cell started to grow and form a body. You started as one cell. This could have been your first photo…

Sanctity of life Sunday. Life, every life, is a miracle. No matter what you’ve been through. No matter what your parents have said about you or failed to say, you are God’s miracle. I showed you one baby picture… here is one where you are at three days old. At this point you have 16 cells. You could put it on the head of a pin. Pic of 16 cell.

Eventually you would form 75 trillion cells. Each cell contains 6 feet of DNA code. Your DNA if stretched out would go to the moon and back 178,000 times. As I told you that 50,000 cells died and were replaced by brand new cells. And just now 50,000 cells died. No wonder we are tired. Fearfully and wonderfully made indeed!