Your Value to God

Romans 5 6. chapter 5 verse 6. for when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly for scarcely for a righteous man will one die yet for adventure for a good man some would even Dare To Die but God but God commendeth God demonstrated his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners not righteous not good while we were yet sinners Christ died for us I want to talk to you today about your value to God God bless you please be seated do you know how much you're worth do you know what your net worth is today I've heard some people check it every day not the average but the median net worth of Americans is 121 760.20 numbers calculated this year how much is your body worth you say not much these days you know well if you could sell every organ Every chemical all the tissue you might be worth as much as 45 million dollars but then after you sold out you wouldn't have anything left so that's not a very good idea the average price for a human body is likely to fetch more like 550 thousand dollars he tried to Value all the raw materials that make up your body they might only be worth about six hundred dollars which is a lot more than it used to be because I've checked on that in the past what is your value how much are you worth as always studying this theme and looking for various things on value and worth I ran across some fascinating information about the value of saving a life it's called vsl the value of saving a life there is extensive research into what a company or a government is willing to pay to save a human life the studies are clear when you read them that they're not attempting to put a value on human life everybody admits that that's impossible but the purpose is only to turn to determine what price others are willing to pay to Save a Life or to prevent the loss of life they say if a girl falls down in a well we don't say well it's going to cost 10 million dollars to get down there and get you good luck you're not worth 10 million dollars we don't think like that we do whatever it takes to rescue the girl out of the well the study of vsl the value of saving a life is not the worth of a human life but of life saving of preventing death since you can't put a value on human life you have to determine how much people are willing to accept to risk their own life to save yours thank God for First Responders who are trained to run to the danger and not away from it so you can find this out and I footnoted my research here that the value of saving a life for an American adult is something like 11.6 million dollars that's what you're worth the vsl for an American child all the children will be glad to know that you're with worth more than twice as much you're worth 23.2 million dollars to save the life of a child I believe that's true in in the church if we reach a 95 year old person and they are saved we would say we saved a soul but when a nine-year-old child is saved we can legitimately say we have saved a soul and we have saved a life the trajectory of their life is totally different because they were saved at nine years old and this is how vsl is applied to something like Highway construction for example we've got a dangerous curve in the road and we need to see if it's going to be worth spending the money to smooth out that curve to save a life so we predict the Improvement will lessen the chance of dying if each person who goes around that curve if there are a million people driving that curve and each one has a reduced risk of dying because of that curve being straightened down a little bit so it's one in a million maybe we just save one life that fixing that curve saved one life so we would say that the value of saving a life in that case is 10 million dollars to regrade the road and decisions like that have to be made all the time in business and by government but I just want to tell you today that God does not calculate your value to him in that manner you have incredible value to God Satan has made a career for all of human history in trying to devalue human life it seems these days is cheaper than it's ever been because people are so willing to Snuff out another life Satan has been trying to make people feel they were not worth anything for eons of time started in the Garden of Eden the serpent Satan in the form of a serpent he's subtle and he comes to Eve and he asks Eve a question it's a Preposterous question he even did God tell you that you cannot eat of any of the trees in the garden he exaggerates and Eve of course really messes up because she starts talking to the devil that is your first mistake when you start negotiating with the devil you need to be like Jesus who responded to Temptation by saying thus it is written God in flesh quoted the written word of God to deal with the Devil you and I are not smart enough to out thick him or outsmart him but the word of God will put him in his place so the woman said a we can eat of any tree we want except for that one that one God said you can't eat it or touch it God said don't eat it maybe Adam told her don't touch it he figured that was a standard to protect the violation of the prohibition given by God the devil says back to the woman you will not surely die you're not going to die verse 5 Genesis 3 for God doesn't know that in the day you eat thereof then your eyes will be open and you shall be as gods in the original it's like God not small gods you'll be like God knowing Good and Evil Satan alludes to this idea to Eve look Eve God doesn't really love you if God loved you he wouldn't put this prohibition on you if God Loved You he'd never tell you no if God loved you he would never try to protect his own power to try to keep you from being like him so all of these do's and don'ts is just God trying to protect himself and he doesn't really love you Eve it doesn't value you Eve he's he's trying to hold you down while he exalts himself trying to devalue God's perspective of Eve and the eyes of Eve so Eve would believe that maybe God doesn't really love us maybe God doesn't really care maybe God is trying to keep us from something that's really good so he believes the devil she believes that God doesn't have her best interests at heart God doesn't really care for her so she believes the devil eats the fruit her eyes are open she sees the good and evil Adam joins her in that sin they are now filled with shame and nakedness they're running and hiding from God because now that your eyes have been opened sin is what devalues you sin is what really lowers who you are in your own estimation the Bible is clear that they experience death by sin but God still loves his disobedient children he sheds and it's in blood he covers Adam and Eve with the skins of those innocent animals and this Begins the story of the Bible of God initiating the rescue of God reaching to restore mankind to a place of fellowship with him and relationship with him if we did not matter to God then human life would have ended in Eden God would have pulled the plug on our planet way back then but instead with the first sin God had a plan that a descendant of the woman referring to the Messiah would crush the head of the serpent that God loves us so much that from the beginning he is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world from the first sin God had already had a cure to bring us back to him amen the Bible it is very clear that God has a high value of you and our text Romans chapter 5 the Bible says I want to go through this verse by verse for when we were without strength Romans 5 and 6. in due time Christ died for the ungodly without strength that's so true in the Bible that we were powerless to save ourselves our sin has separated us from God there's nothing you can do there is none righteous no not one you can't pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and in our sinful condition we are totally lost but in due time or just in time or as Paul would write in Galatians in the fullness of time God would come and and Christ would die for the ungodly sinless innocent blood of Jesus Christ freely given to cover sin this is remarkable and it is remarkable because of what Paul writes under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost in verse 7 for scarcely for a righteous man will one die and yet per adventure for a good man someone even dare to die now he's saying that if if you're lucky I don't want to use the word lucky but you might find somebody who would die for you if you were really a righteous person you were a law-abiding citizen an upstanding person righteous in your character scarcely could you get anybody to die for you as righteous As You Are but poor Adventure perhaps maybe you could find somebody who would die for a good person now I have read about righteous and good and it's hard to distinguish what is meant here except that maybe a righteous man isn't all that likable But A Good Man is both righteous and likable a friend somebody that you kind of favor them and her adventure for a good man some would even Dare To Die but not many are willing to do something like that when it comes to giving out my life for your life I'm going to calculate the value of saving your life what is your life worth compared to my life are you worth more than me that I would be willing to lay down my life for yours what's the value Jesus said in John 15 13 Greater Love have no man than this that a man laid down his life or his friends in Romans 5 and 8 Paul said that God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us you may feel like a righteous person today and you might even think of yourself as a good person today and you should be righteous and you should be good and last week I preached on the the righteous and the wicked but when Christ died for us you nor I were righteous and we were not good our value to life and God was Zero if you were to try to calculate his life for yours there is no way to say that God calculated the vsl and said I'm willing to lay down my life for them for what they're going to bring to me while we were yet sinners Christ died for us this is the miracle of the Gospel that while we were unrighteous and while we were bad that Jesus Christ died for us and in the gospels we we see the stories of people who kind of explain or Express by their lives this idea that we don't deserve what Jesus Christ did for us Zacchaeus the Crooked tax collector was not righteous he was not good but he repented and of him Jesus said the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost Jesus in another occasion decides to go out of the normal route to go through Samaria that that neighborhood the one that Jews would circumnavigate if at all possible but he goes to Samaria he goes to the city of sidecar it is there that he meets a woman who is not worth it she's been married five times five past husbands she is living with a man out of wedlock she is certainly not the kind of person that brings value to the kingdom of God but it is to the woman at the well that Jesus brings a message of Hope and forgiveness and of Living Water so that she would never thirst again the gospels give us these case studies of people who had no value as we would calculate the value of a righteous or a good person and then there's the woman who is dragged away from an immoral encounter to the feet of Jesus Christ John 8 and 4 the woman is taken in the in adultery in the very Act and these accusers say to Jesus Moses in the law commanded us that she should be stoned now it is probably been a long time when that law was followed but they're going to pull it up anyway they say to Jesus what do you say about it Hallelujah he's supposedly righteous people condescendingly looking at this woman wanting Jesus to judge her Jesus Stoops down takes his finger and he starts riding on the ground doodling people speculate he's writing their sins or whatever doesn't say anything about that they're trying to catch him in his words but then this last phrase of John 8 and 6 the Bible said as though he heard them not he's ignoring them he heard what they said but he's acting like he didn't hear a word of that at all if you ever want to know what God thinks about you when you start accusing other people he acts like he's ignoring you I don't think that really sunk in when you decide you're going to judge everybody else God Steeps down on the ground and he starts doodling around as if he didn't hear you because you're aligning yourself with Satan who is the accuser of the brethren oh they they don't give up they keep asking him well he stands up and he looks at all these accusers and he said he that is without sin among you right in First cast a stone at her and then Jesus stooped down and started riding on the ground again this is one of the most amazing passages the reaction of Jesus Christ they heard it being convicted by their own conscience they went out one by one from the oldest to the youngest thank God they at least had a conscience and acknowledge of their own sins that they were standing in a place of judgment when they themselves were worthy to be judged and the only one in that conversation or in the universe worthy to judge by the law he is the law embodied he looks at the woman John 8 and 10. he lifted up himself and saw none but the woman he said to her woman where are those dine accusers hath no man condemned thee and she said no man Lord and Jesus said neither do I condemn thee go and sin no more if we're going to take a poll in the church if we're going to calculate the value of saving a life this woman is on the bottom of the list she does not deserve it but God loves her anyway the Apostle Paul wrote this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief the Bible is very clear that true love is not demonstrated it is not really known by the fact that we would love God because that is a no-brainer the real condensed on the real thing that is impossible to Fathom is what John wrote in first John 4 and 9 and this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might believe through him here in his love not that we love God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation or the satisfying sacrifice for our sins this is how we know that we have value to God not because we love God but because God stood so low and came so far that being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but he made himself of no reputation he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him what I want you to see today is that God did not do the math to see what we would give back to him amen for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves it is the gift of God it is not by works of righteousness that we have done but it is according to his Mercy that he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost I want to repeat it that God did not calculate the worth of your soul based on the value that you would add back to the kingdom of God he laid down his life for us because he considered the worth of our soul the Bible said what little shall it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose the soul or what shall amen give in exchange for his soul your soul is the most valuable thing that you possess and God values your soul regardless of your value that may be brought by saving your life by other means sometimes in culture we see those amazing rescue attempts like a person stuck in a well or people that are in an impossible situation where they cannot save themselves was reading the story it happened just a few years ago in 2018. along the border between Thailand and Myanmar there's a mountain range called the DOI nangnan and under this mountain range are caverns in caves the whole system of them a limestone complex known as the fam luang dang non not a good old American Smith or Jones name 6.2 miles long there's many deep recesses and narrow passageways and tunnels winding under hundreds of miles of limestone strata parts of the cave the system experience seasonal flooding so because of that at an entrance to the cave there is a sign advising against entering the cave during the rainy season now the rainy season there that part of Thailand on the border of Myanmar is from July to November without warning tunnels in the caves can become impassable by flooding from torrential rainfall and it can happen very quickly on Saturday June 23 2018 a group of 12 boys between the ages of 11 and 16 were part of a local soccer team they call it football in most parts of the world they went into the caves they're they're they were called the wild boars that was the name of their soccer team their coach assistant coach rather was 25 years old his name was ekaphon kantawang took them on this adventure they left their bicycles and some belongings outside the cave at the mouth of the cave and they went in and then they went missing they did not come back according to early news reports they planned to have a birthday party in the cave after their soccer game but sudden continuous rainfall flooded the tunnels in the cave and this soccer team was stranded in there days went by without any relief from the rainwater would not recede there was no contact the stranded boys for more than a week efforts to locate this group were hampered by the rising water levels and strong currents inside the cave system this team of young boys caught the attention of the world and the cave rescue effort expanded into a massive operation amid the intense worldwide public interest there's there's boys stranded in a cave let's go get them you might remember this story from 2018. International rescue teams rushed to Thailand to help on July 2nd after advancing through narrow passages and Muddy Waters the British divers John volathan and Rick Stanton found the group alive these boys and their coach were stranded on an elevated Rock about two and a half miles from the mouth of the cave there were failed rescued attempts there was an elaborate rescue plan that was devised but days dragged on and the conditions were extremely difficult once the plan was in place two divers would escort each of the boys out the boys would be Tethered to a lead diver and another diver would follow behind I saw a graphic in between Services learn more information that each boy was placed on a stretcher but they full face dive mask one boy had a smaller frame and his mask had to be duct taped to his face the rescue required the boys to be dived out of the cave and because it was so dangerous and they probably cannot handle the darkness each of them was fully and necessed they were sedated so they could be taken out I read between services this presented unique practical and ethical challenges for the rescue team there were major departures from normal anesthetic practices that were required taking anesthetized children under water was unprecedented it was complex and it was dangerous but to do this underground in a flooded cave meant that the risks were extreme one by one these boys were reached the resource is required to do this were immense this rescue effort involved as many as 10 000 people more than 100 divers scores of rescue workers representatives from about 100 governmental agencies 900 police officers 2 000 soldiers 10 police helicopters seven ambulances more than 700 diving cylinders and my cousin at that time was stationed in in Panama City Beach which is like the the naval dive training center of the world and guys there were in touch with people that they had trained in Thailand they had to pump more than one billion liters of water out of those caves that's over 264 million gallons of water the cost was immense not just in resources and time and money but also in human lives two men on the rescue teams lost their lives in the effort well coming back from delivering some air tanks to the boys Suman gunan he's 38 years old a former Royal Thai Navy SEAL probably trained by our Navy SEAL trainers was trapped in a small section he ran out of oxygen and he died of asphyxiation saving those boys the following year in December of 2019 a rescue diver who was also a Thai Navy SEAL named Beirut pakbara he died of a blood infection that he contracted during the operation these men gave their lives to save the lives of others but it all when it was said and done all 12 of the boys and their coaches their coach was rescued it's an amazing story there's been documentaries in a movie or two maybe made about this an extraordinarily extraordinary effort that had an amazing happy ending but when I read about this story and their numerous accounts it was amazing to me that no one on that rescue team esteem their life more valuable than the lives of those boys and their coach who were hopelessly trapped how much did it cost 18 days 10 000 workers mostly done by volunteers worth millions and millions of dollars from nine to 300 to 500 million I've read he tried to calculate all the volunteer hours but The Rescuers they believed that those boys were worth saving they had never done anything for the rescue workers those boys were young teenagers 111 at least one like every sinner ever saved by Jesus Christ those who gave their lives to save them valued the lives of those boys no one sat around trying to calculate the cost once again it cost how long is it going to take what are we going to have to do how many doctors are going to help us boys maybe you had to be repeatedly anesthetized as they were brought out of the caves they just did the work and they saved the boys the money and the Manpower the lives lost in the rescue to The Rescuers it was deemed worth it I had can't find anyone he'd ever said before we go in and save them we're going to try to find out if those are good boys before we go after them let's find out if they are righteous boys nobody thought about that they're just lost and we think we can get them and we will there's a story in the Bible that mirrors this story to me when Jesus was crucified according to Matthew 27 38 he was crucified between two thieves one on his right hand and one on his left one of the male factors Luke tells us that was hanged with him railed on him and he said if you're the Christ save yourself in US on the other side that Thief is he is dying has a change of heart and he rebukes that first thief and says do you not fear God saying we're under the same condemnation and and we're dying justly but but this man has done nothing in this innocence of Jesus Christ said to the Lord Lord remember me when you come into your kingdom through his excruciating pain that Thief looked into the eyes of Jesus Christ said Remember Me and Jesus did I want you to think about the value of saving the life of that thief on the cross he had literally no perceived value he lived his life as a malefactor a criminal and he's dying a thief his whole life is coming to an end he's getting what he deserves he deserves to die he had done nothing to deserve the love of God he would never volunteer at church and never return his tithes to the Lord never give to missions I imagine he could never give to imagine he didn't have any time to go make amends for all the wrongs he had done couldn't give back any money could just say I'm sorry he couldn't fix any of the mess that he'd spend his life making he's hanging there and dying is powerless to add value to anyone or anything before Sundown that day the Roman soldiers would come by and with their expertise they would take those mallets and they would break the legs of both thieves reducing their ability to hold themselves up on the cross because the Sabbath was coming those men sag on the cross by asphyxiation they would die and Jesus laid down his life was died before the soldiers got there if you knew his case if you knew this man you would have not given him a prayer no hope at all but the end of his life in the end of his life all he had was a prayer and that prayer was enough I would dare say there's no one in this house today that is Despicable as this thief he is another case study into the grace of God it is the mercy of God that God never has and never will calculate what you can give back to him for he freely gave his life for you and I want you to know today that on your worst day he loved you unconditionally he shed his blood freely that you have incalculable value to God your value to God is Not based on anything you've ever done or ever will do it is based by the unmerited favor and love of God he purchased you with his blood amen he saved you and redeemed you Lord amen he loved us when we were unlovable for all of sin it comes short of the glory of God the wages of sin is death the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ Our Lord and in our text Romans 5 and 8. but God but God if you're righteous scarcely you might find somebody to die for you if you're good perhaps you'll find somebody to die for you but God demonstrated his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us I want you to know today that you are a soul worth saving quit talking to the Devil he's making you believe that you have no value to God that you've messed up too much that there's nothing salvageable about your life and if you are saved I want you to know that on your worst day as a saint that if God loved you enough if he spared not his son to save you how shall he not with him also freely give us all things in other words whatever you need to be saved to stay saved God has those resources for you to to save you and to keep you like for you to Bow your heads right now and I'd like for every intercessor to pray with me when I say intercessor I mean every Spirit-filled person to pray for a lost person right now or a saved person who is struggling to believe that God loves him would you pray because this message is for somebody today who desperately needs to know their value to god let's pray right now Lord God you came for yourself Hallelujah that's it however far he has to go he's like the Shepherd that keeps searching until he finds a lost sheep he's like the woman who keeps searching the house until she finds the Lost coin he is like the father of the prodigal who always waits until his wayward son comes home would you thank the Lord for the Unspeakable gift of salvation for the unmerited love of God for the price he paid for you sea [Music] staying in your heart when I make this right when I make this success when I do this for that then I will come I tell you today that the day of salvation today is the day that I'm calling you today is the day that you must make that choice you are not promised tomorrow you I hold your light and your death in my hands I will dictate when that time shall be so today do not Harden your heart as you have done in times past do not Harden your heart and say when I have my way when I have completed my things then I will turn to God you do choice again I say to you today is the day of salvation give heed do not turn away today is the day of your salvation now as you receive what the Lord has spoken to us through the gifts of tongues and interpretation because God has accentuated this message with a giant exclamation point this message is about the love of God reaching for you but this message from the Lord to underscore this message is a Divine ultimatum that you do not have the luxury of time you only have today