Last night proved to be another important installment of our ongoing midweek series. We focused our energy on learning what it means to be “fearfully and wonderfully made,” as we took in the text of Psalm 139 verse-by-verse.
We made a number of important observations from the text, including the fact that only Christ can satisfy our deep need to be fully known. It may sound obvious, but it’s worth remembering: God knows us better than we know ourselves! To think that God knows everything about me causes me to marvel, like David – “This is too wonderful for me!” I made the point that God’s knowledge is a searchlight into the deepest recesses of my being, even those “thought closets” that I don’t want Him to know anything about. But who am I kidding? We considered a quote from Matthew Henry: “God has perfect knowledge of us, and all our thoughts and actions are open before him.”
Then we talked about the love of God for us. Only God can satisfy our deep need to be fully loved. Our Creator’s own invisible hand leads and guides and protects and sustains us. We see this in the miracle of the conception of a child. God brings together something from the man … and something from the woman … and they must come together at precisely the right moment … and under precisely the right circumstances … and a human being is created! Marvelous! God’s little image bearers just keep coming into the world, and each one is not just a human body, but a human soul. Who can create a soul? Not you. Not I. We, like David, just stand in awe.
There are no mistakes: God chose gladly to give us life, and – when the time was perfect – He deliberately brought each one of us into being! And only Christ can satisfy our deep need to be valued. A true sense of self-worth must start with the recognition that we have been purposefully designed – including our gender. There is no such thing as an “accident” or a “mistake.” Last night we talked again about the importance of acknowledging and respecting the image of God that has been stamped upon every person, and we considered how certain societal evils – like human trafficking – seek to erase that powerful and personal image. We considered a couple of laws in California which, though purportedly designed to support people struggling with gender identity, end up empowering perpetrators of sexual abuse.
We talked about David, Israel’s second king and the psalm writer, who did not have a microscope of any kind. But David could see. Not only could his eyes survey their surroundings, but his ears could detect the sounds of wildlife in the woods … his tongue could speak to other people and communicate with them … his hands could grip a sword for battle … his arm muscles could guide a horse or a plow … his carefully crafted fingers could strum a harp beautifully and skillfully … and David was intelligent enough to recognize that the inanimate matter all around him could do none of those things. Far surpassing everything else, David’s God-given mind could meditate and contemplate and plan his next weighty move. No other kind of living thing could compose songs in praise of its Maker … but David could.
Much, much later in human history … in 1828, the German chemist Friedrich Wöhler rocked the world by shattering the distinction that science had made between life and nonlife. And if life is made of chemicals, then chemists could study it. Biochemistry would teach us that a cell is made up of immensely complex, discrete chemical substances – enzymes, proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins, and more … all with myriad, specific, critical roles to play. The foundation of life consists of enormously complicated, working molecules. That would lead eventually to the electron microscope, and eventually to our understanding of DNA. As human beings, our design is breathtakingly elegant … wondrous … complex … precision-engineered … and multiplied every day in the billions of God’s deeply loved image bearers on Planet Earth.
We talked about how misguided gender ideology undermines the truth of God. Particularly, it endangers young people, who are so hungry for affirmation and acceptance. We looked at examples from sports, advertising, and even preschool education. We considered the unique opportunity that the church has right now to breathe hope into an incredibly confused culture. In fact, in the gospel of Jesus, we have the hope that the world most needs.
And we talked about how, in God’s economy, you and I are not replaceable. Like Moses, we may think that God can find a more qualified candidate to do the job to which we’ve been called – but it’s simply not true. We are fearfully and wonderfully made! Last night we remembered the words of Ephesians, and Paul’s reminder that we were loved “before the foundation of the world.”
You and I have neither the smarts nor the ability to fix everything that’s broken about our world, but we can share the love of Christ with those who long to be loved. That includes everyone. I closed our night with this simple thought: “Our message is not, ‘Get your gender straight!’ Our message is, ‘Come to Jesus! His arms are open wide.’ May our Lord enlarge our heart to be bold but humble ambassadors of grace for such a time as this.
Pastor Charles
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