Sunday Sermon: You Have Value
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Text: Matthew 6:26
Series: Certain Truths for Uncertain Times
How much is a human body worth? Well, the answer to that question depends on whom you’re asking. For example, a group of economists at Stanford estimated the value of a human body by reducing it into basic elements and came up with the figure of $129,000, while a group of scientists at a firm called DataGenetics took the approach of analyzing the basic minerals that make up our bodies and came up with a paltry sum of $160. On the black market, parceling out your organs might get you somewhere in the vicinity of $45 million (though I wouldn’t recommend it). And if you were to look at a life insurance calculator, such as the one I came across at lifehappens.org, a person earning $100,000 a year with 30 years to retirement has an estimated value of $4 million. I did a calculation on my life, and I’m not nearly worth that much, for numerous reasons, primarily my age.
Be that as it may, the point is that valuations of a person’s life are all over the map, depending on one’s intent (am I going to insure my life or sell my organs off?), one’s age (am I young or old?), and one’s point of view (are we talking basic minerals or life-saving parts?). But none of these calculations takes into consideration one’s religious life, without which a person is left having to estimate his worth on the basis of biology alone, which as you can figure out is a pretty flimsy way to approach the matter. The only thing worse is what most people choose to do, which is to estimate it on the basis of what one does or how one looks or what car one drives or where one lives. I think you see the point: without a healthy religious life one locates his or her value in a zero-sum sort of way.
It reminds me of the story of the church that found itself having to fight city hall over a rezoning decision that had been made by their local zoning commission. The group had rezoned the land around their church from agricultural to industrial, hoping of course to benefit economically from the decision. When members from the church went to the next meeting of the commission to seek an appeal, one of the members of commission explained the group’s decision this way: “We didn’t think it would matter all that much. Nobody goes to that church anyway.” To which one of the members stood up to respond on behalf of the church, and gesturing to the other members who had come to the meeting with her, asked, “So how many nobodies does it take to make a somebody?”
That’s the real question, isn’t it? And the good news is that in God’s eyes, it only takes one. From God’s perspective, each one of us matters. To God’s way of thinking, every single one of His human creation has immeasurable value, so much so that God is ever watching over us and ever watching out for us in order to make sure that our every need is met.
So, promised Jesus in His most famous teaching, the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is, of course, a compilation of teachings Jesus gave on the kingdom of heaven, the rule and reign of God, which one day will become the dominant reality on earth. It’s clearly not so now, but when God’s people order their lives around its principles instead of the principles by which the world lives, God’s kingdom draws near a little bit more each and every day.
One of the ways believers do that is by trusting God with our essential needs, simply because we are convinced that our lives are secure in God’s hands because He values us most highly.
In this passage that’s before us this morning, Jesus is encouraging His disciples to embrace this very approach to everyday life. Instructing them not to give in to undue anxiety, He tells them, “Look at the birds of the air (pay close attention to them; scrutinize them; lock in on them; don’t just give them a passing glance); they neither sow nor reap nor store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? What Jesus is saying is that we can see from nature how God provides for His creation; and since humankind, according to the first chapter of Genesis, is the “crown jewel” of creation, it stands to reason that God will care for us even more! We are, after all, the bearers of God’s image. If God did not take care of us, what would that lack of care say about the nature of our Creator God? It wouldn’t reflect favorably on Him. But He does care; and because He does, we can claim our future in faith as to God’s certain provisions.
Can you do that this morning? In a day when so many are beside themselves trying to earn a living, can you rest confidently in the promise that through your faith what God has done for you by sending His Son Jesus Christ to be the means to your salvation, by His grace in Christ you are able to receive a life and to do so out of the assurance that God loves you, not so much because of who you are, but in spite of who you are, and because of who God is – a God who sees in us a sense of worth that we can never see and certainly could never calculate?
If you could, then, according to Jesus, you’d be free from undue anxiety over your everyday life and you’d then be able to focus your energy and attention to serving God’s kingdom purposes in this world, a service that would display your value to the kingdom better than anything else to which you might point. That’s because worry keeps us from being fully present to the opportunities God gives us on a regular basis to join Him in the work of redemption He is about in our world. When you worry about something, your attention is directed to the object of your concern and nothing else. You’re there; you’re not here. You’re stuck on stressing over what you think might be a devastating future, which may or may not be so; and all the while you’re missing out on the possibilities of this present moment, possibilities that are made possible because of the immeasurable love God has for you through His Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
That’s not to say that everything will play out for you with no bumps or bruises. The world God is working to redeem is still very much a fallen one and at times it will most surely reach out and bite us. But what it is to say is that in those moments when we must face some challenge or obstacle to the favor God would have us to know and the good God would have us to experience, His providential presence will be with us to meet that pressing need and make for us a clear and unobstructed way. After all, that’s what the word “valuable” means, as Jesus used it. It’s a compound word that comes the Greek word for “through” with another Greek word for “carry.” Because God sees us as more valuable than anything else in all creation, He will show up in our times of need to be there for us and to “carry us through.”
Mahalia Jackson was a renowned gospel singer in the last century who came to experience God’s providential presence in a most telling way and felt led to share it with others in song. Mahalia only sang gospel despite intense efforts by her agents and others to have her branch out into secular music. Her reasoning was plainspoken, like everything else about her. “I sing God’s music because it makes me feel free. It gives me hope. With the blues, when you finish, you still have the blues.”
Her early life was a most challenging one. Born in New Orleans in 1911, she was orphaned at age five, and grew up in a three-room house that had to accommodate thirteen people and a dog. Mahalia migrated to Chicago at age 20, where she scrubbed floors and cooked to make ends meet.
There in Chicago, she was invited to join the Greater Salem Baptist Church Choir, which toured churches in the surrounding area with other gospel singers. Mahalia was noticed, signed to a contract, and embarked on a recording career, which eventually led to the induction of one of her song’s into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. What was the name of the song? It was a song she had heard in her own childhood and locked on to, a song originally recorded by another gospel singer, Ethel Waters, which she made her own, a song titled, “His Eye Is On the Sparrow.” You know the lyrics:
Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come?
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home?
When Jesus is my portion, my constant friend is He.
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.
I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free.
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.
The way to rise above your worries is to focus instead on the goodness and loving care of God. And if you have any doubts about that whatsoever, then look at the birds of the air, which neither sow nor reap nor store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Indeed, you are. In God’s sight you most certainly are.