[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's Word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to Him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 8:30 or 10:30am if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find
[email protected] Be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: You probably remember being at, like a big field or maybe a big arena, and it's one of those situations. It's packed with people, shoulder to shoulder. It's hard to kind of make your way through. And in those moments, a lot of times what happens is you hear over the loudspeaker an announcement that usually sounds like this.
If I can have your attention, please. A child has gone missing.
That happened to us a while back when we went to the hot air balloon festival.
I'll never forget that. They went over that loudspeaker and they let everybody know that a young man had gone missing. And they let us know what he looked like and what he was wearing so we could know and look for him.
And I want you just for a second to put yourselves in that audience and in that field.
And I want you to imagine for just a second what you would do in that moment.
I have a feeling that if you heard that a child had gone missing, you wouldn't be like, hmm, and go grab another Funyun and keep eating.
I have a feeling that what you would probably do is do what everybody seemed to do in that field that day, as everybody was on the lookout.
And it was kind of neat in a way, to see a group of people that were so different, different areas from different walks of life, all valued this life that they didn't even know and they were in pursuit of maybe for some of you, and not that this has exactly happened to me, but say just for instance, that you're at Disney World and one of your four children goes missing, when that happens, you're probably not like, you know, I've got three more. So that's 75%, and the odds are pretty good there. So at least it's the majority, right?
No, of course you wouldn't.
Because when it comes to a human life, a statistic does not matter.
And by the way if we're going to go off statistics.
In Luke chapter 15, when Jesus tells about this man that had 100 sheep, he leaves 99 to go after the 1.
Because every life matters.
Or imagine for just a second, you're a fireman and you see, like, at the top of a building that there's somebody trapped up there.
And in that moment you've probably never heard of and you never will see a group of firemen gather together and start to say, hey, do you happen to know what his political views are?
Or has he been a pretty good citizen? Like, that's not something you begin to wonder.
What they do is they climb up. No matter who that person is, they rescue that person, putting their life at risk.
Why?
Because every single life has immeasurable worth.
I don't remember this. I was one, but I remember my parents talking about it a lot. But in 1987, there was this little girl that was just a few months old.
She stumbled into this little ravine that was about like 22ft deep.
And she was in that little tunnel area thing, and for like 58 hours.
One of the things I read said that there was even this guy that heard about it and immediately got on a plane and flew there because he had some skills that could help get that young lady out of there.
One thing I read said that they had spent thousands of dollars, all in order to rescue this one little girl.
They didn't know her.
But it doesn't matter, because every single life has value.
So my question is, why can a field in Decatur, Alabama, change on a dime?
And why can this fight or flight response happen within people? When we see a human being hurt, I'll tell you where that comes from.
It comes from our Creator, the one that gives life, the one that makes life, sustains it and protects it.
So what is it that makes a life valuable, then?
Well, I think it's a few things. Number one, Scripture says the value of a human life is based on whose image that life reflects.
The second is what the one is willing to give up or to sacrifice in order to pay for that life.
Today we're going to continue our series Divine Connections on the Ten Commandments.
And you heard it announced this morning. I'm covering. Number six, thou shalt not kill. Or depending on your translation, thou shalt not murder.
And I know it's vbs, and I know I'm on a really colorful stage, and I even thought, well, we could start with Sid from Toy Story and kind of build from there and.
But the more I got into this study. I'll go ahead and tell you, the more excited I was about how this actually connects with what we're gonna focus on this week, because one of the things that came to the surface that I really wasn't expecting, but I should have was this. That all the commentaries, all the podcasts, one of the things that they point to, yes, it is important not to kill, and it's important not to murder. But the baseline of that command is this.
God values life.
And because God values life, so should we.
But I'll go ahead and tell you, another challenge with this topic is if you saw it in the bulletin that we're talking about Thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not kill. You probably thought, well, this should be a pretty quick sermon.
Don't kill. All right? And he's out of there. So, sorry, change your lunch plans. It's not going to be super quick, because here's the challenge of thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not murder.
It's way deeper than that.
Yes, God doesn't want us to take an innocent life, but one of the things that we're gonna look at as we get into the gospels and all throughout the Old Testament is that if you feel like, well, I didn't murder anybody, so I'm off the hook, here's what the challenge is. He also tells us that when we don't look after the poor, it's a type of killing spirit.
And when we don't share the gospel with people, it's a murderous spirit. And when we hate people that are made in the very image and the likeness of God, it's a type of killing.
So what I'm saying is it's way more all encompassing, I think, than we might realize.
But here's what I hope we get as we dig into this today.
God values life, and so should we. So let's get into the text.
Probably a lot of you, as you open your Bibles right now to Exodus 20:13, I would dare to say that a lot of you, most of you, your Bibles say thou shalt not murder or do not murder.
But I purposefully picked thou shalt not kill because of different articles I read, different podcasts I listened to and different commentaries, because there is a difference between killing and murder. I want to say that again, there's a difference between killing and murder.
However, murder is actually included in killing.
And so one of the things that I want to ask then is, all right, so if my Bible says do not murder, and this Bible, which by the Way it doesn't have usually everything right or a lot of things right. But it's interesting. The oldest, the King James version, is the one that says, thou shalt not kill.
According to most Hebrew scholars, the most accurate word would have actually been this one, to not kill.
And the reason why thou shalt not kill is the more accurate translation is because the instances that word kill, which is rat sock in the Hebrew, was used in other parts of Scripture. So this word, ratsak, what it means is this. To murder, to slay, to kill. Premeditated, accidental. And as an avenger and a slayer, you see that in Briggs and Driver and in Strong's commentary. So the whole idea behind it is that it includes murder. But it's so many things. You're like, well, how could it be accidental? How could it be unintentional? And what's the difference between all of this? Well, I'll give you three quick examples of how this word is used in scripture to show you why kill is kind of a better word to describe what's going on here, even though murder can be included.
So if you look in the Old Testament, I'll give you a few examples. Number one, one of those is Ahab. You might remember Ahab saw that a guy named Naboth had a field that he really liked. He's like, I want that for myself.
And Naboth was not willing to sell him or to give him that field. So what happened was he was like, all right, so what I'm going to do is falsely accuse this guy of something. Jezebel is going to help me. And we're. What we're going to do is we're going to falsely accuse him so we can murder him. So the whole idea was this was premeditated, but it still was that Hebrew word, rat sak. Here's what's interesting. In the cities of refuge, in Exodus 21, in Deuteronomy, and in Leviticus, we see this word used. See, a city of refuge was used for this.
Say back in the day, you and a buddy were carrying a big old rock, and you were carrying that rock, and all of a sudden, you, like, stumbled, and the rock fell on your buddy.
During this day, a lot of times, people might say, I wonder if he did that on purpose.
I'm gonna go after him. I'm gonna kill him. I bet he did. He didn't even like my brother. And so what they would do is they could flee to a city of refuge and be safe until a judicial process has taken place.
So even in that moment, the accidental was using rot sock. Another example was this.
We see a lot of times through scripture when people treat life recklessly, when they treat life as disposable, when they treat life very carelessly, it's also defined as rahsach.
The reason why I mentioned all these different examples is, is it's very all consuming. But I hope we understand what the main point he's getting at is that every human life matters and every human life should be preserved and protected.
Now, one of the challenges I ran into is where my mind likes to go in a topic like this when I'm like, well, what about this and what about that?
And by the way, if you want, I can give you about four hours worth of podcasts and YouTube videos about all of this and.
But I'm not gonna do that today, by the way. But it's easy to get sucked into because I do want to very quickly say, when it comes to like, self defense, Exodus 22, Romans 13, that self defense is different than murder.
The other thing that I want to mention too, when you look into this, because maybe you're thinking, what about eating animals? Well, we're gonna look at that in just a second.
There's a difference in eating an animal and then the blood of the animal on the ground. We're going to get into that in just a second. But also, what about war?
Well, again, in Romans 13, we also see that there's a difference in war and just war. I want to say that again, just random war. Like I want to go get another battle and just war. But again, the point of the command is not to get into all these nuances. The point of the command is to highlight what God values. And it's this, this life.
So I want you to turn with me to Genesis chapter nine, because this is one of those moments when this word is used. But I also want you to see what is surrounding this command. And I find it so interesting that of all the things God could say, and of all the commands he could pick to give, right after giving, bringing the flood about and flooding the earth, that the one thing he decides to say is, do not kill.
So go to verse one with me and I want you to notice what starts this whole thing. It says in verse one, God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Now stop for a second. Before he says, do not kill. Before he says, do not murder. He says, be fruitful, multiply. He's saying, have families, have kids, populate the earth. Hold that in your mind.
And then he says, the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the flesh of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. And here gets to what I was sharing earlier. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
But notice this, and there's a reason. Because life and blood go hand in hand.
But you shall not eat flesh with its life. That is its blood. And for your lifeblood, it will require a reckoning. From every beast, I will require it. And from man, from this fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man. And notice what he does here.
He's going back to the garden.
And he uses a phrase here that we remember. He says, whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed. For God made man in his image.
And notice what he says again.
Because I want you to be fruitful.
I want you to multiply.
I'm wanting you to fill this earth.
Why in the world, after they just spent all this time in a boat, that all of a sudden now he says, thou shalt not kill?
Well, I think part of it is what I mentioned earlier. He just said, I want this earth to be filled up.
I want people to be fruitful. I want them to be multiplying. That's why he said that twice.
The other thing that I had never considered that Adam Clark's commentary pointed out that that part of the reason why he also said this is because at this time, people had become very desensitized to death.
If you remember, pre flood, one of the things the scriptures talk about is that people were killing each other.
And I was a kid, I remember thinking, like, okay, God, you say you love us, but like, why would you send a flood to destroy the earth? Like, that's not very loving. Actually.
It would be so unloving if God sat by and did nothing and let one generation kill another generation and another generation. He wouldn't do that because God values life.
And so what happened was they had become very desensitized to death.
And you even think about Cain. You remember what happened with Cain when he killed Abel? Well, that desensitization that he had in his own heart towards getting vengeance and murdering his own brother, guess what ended up happening? Because one generation was desensitized to how they flippantly treated life. We end up seeing a few Generations later, the nephilim.
And I'm not trying to have a angry man front porch yelling session here, but I just want to say a little bit about even the video games that our kids play that treat life like it's disposable and makes fun of the fact that someone's laying on the ground bleeding out.
That desensitization is a really huge deal.
But the other part that I want us to think of is that the challenge is if we keep thinking in this way, it's going to be very easy, not just two generations away, but right now, to treat life disposable.
I'll tell you, this past Sunday's lesson Brandon gave on honoring your father and mother was amazing for several reasons.
But I don't know if y' all have this happen to you a lot, but sometimes somebody will preach a lesson, and then God immediately tests you in that.
And I won't get into too many details because of live stream and stuff and because he watches. But on Monday, right after that lesson, my family was coming through town, and one of the things that I always try to help my mom with is taking my father to the restroom so she doesn't have to do that because her and my family are so awesome and taking care of and tending to his needs.
And by the way, the champy's bathroom needs to be renovated. It's incredibly small and hard to maneuver.
But anyway, I spent some time in that restroom, and for those of you that are maybe at a point that are doing it at a much heavier level than I or anybody I know has, but it's easy at that time, and I guess this is a little bit of a confession, it's easy at that time to sometimes treat that person or talk to them like a child because it is kind of frustrating and they're not doing what you want.
And, man, Brandon, I needed that lesson so bad, because even as people get older and family gets older and friends get older, I guess what I'm saying is this.
The value of a human life does not arrive at a stage because it even goes deeper.
One of the things that happened when Loriann was pregnant with John Cade is she had asked me if I could talk to her belly and talk to him.
And I was like, well, it's kind of weird feeling, like, what do I say?
So, man, like, how's it going in there?
Good swimmer?
[00:19:22] Speaker A: All right.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: But no, like, you kind of wonder, like, what do you say?
What do you talk about? You know, it's a lot of things that you wonder like, is this really. And she's like, no. Because what's gonna happen is, I've heard that if he hears you, it's gonna make a big difference in his life, and he's gonna know your voice. And I was like, that's craziness. But y' all have seen these videos. We have one. But when he was born, she gets him.
You know, he's screaming to the top of his lungs. You can see that little thing in the back of his throat. You know what I'm talking about? Dang. On the little punching bag.
And she puts him on her chest, or the lady does, and he is screaming at the top of his lungs. I say, hey, buddy, it's Daddy. Bam. Stops crying instantly.
And this shouldn't have shocked me because one of the things that. And I told you guys this a few years ago, but one of the things that happened, our family has been blessed to grow in different ways. And one of those is through adoption.
And one of the things that happened with one of our kids is when we got a call about them, we were so excited. But the doctor or the agency had said, hey, just want to let you know that they are in the NICU because they're not eating.
And so they were on a feeding tube and had been on a feeding tube for several days.
And I'll come back to that in a second. There's a reason why that happens with a lot of children who are adopted.
There's a book called Primal Wound.
And what's interesting about this book, I'm not recommending it, by the way. It's not a light read. It's not an enjoyable read, but it's a realistic read. And it's very interesting to me that this book is used by a lot of Christian agencies, but more often than not, it's mainly used by secular agencies.
And what's interesting is even the secular agencies are proving the value of human life at every stage.
Because this secular author spends the entire book letting you know that even within the first few days and weeks of that baby's life in the womb, they are developing a psychological, a physiological and and physical connection with birth Mama.
And what happens is, is when they're born and they're taken away from birth mom as day minutes old, they grieve.
They grieve because there's a loss. It is called detachment.
And so even as a one day old, there's this connection there that's lost. And so I'll never forget, we go in there and they said, you know, he's in the nicu. You're probably going to stay here for several days.
And just as God gives life, God also, I believe, makes families.
And I'll never forget that they said, you know, they won't eat.
And so my wife held them, and not just one, but sucked down two bottles and we got to go home the next day.
The value of a human life does not arrive at a stage.
Every human life matters.
Part of the reason is what it says in verse four and five.
Because throughout Scripture, life was always connected with blood, and blood was always connected with life.
And this is also, by the way, almost like a prophetic picture, fast forwarding of what Jesus was giving. It's spiritual, it's physical, it's so many things. But also, if you notice in verse six, they were giving a reference to being made in the image of God. And this was a Latin phrase, imago dei. And imago DEI shows up in so many places in Scripture. And if you were a Hebrew person, if you were someone that lived at this time and you heard imago dei, you know how they viewed people made in the image of God, or that phrase, imago day, it was the same as someone would treat a statue or a grave of someone who passed on. It was with respect, it was with value.
This word to them meant a lot. It means a lot to God. And so that's, I think the challenge of even a topic like this one is there is like the modern, moral, academic side of things that on one hand we're told to celebrate and preserve a life, but on the other one, through philosophy or science or whatever it is, we're told, well, there's nothing special. So which is it?
So here's the challenge that we all have to make. And this is not a one side of the aisle thing, because I'm telling you, this makes both sides of the aisle move, that we cannot let how we see a human life be shaped by a worldview.
We have to let it be shaped by God.
So in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, we see this, I think about in the book of Matthew, we see this phrase, well, you've heard it said.
And so what's interesting is that phrase, well, you've heard it said, Jesus is actually adding to what happens before the murder or the killing itself, that there's something that takes place in the heart.
And so in Matthew 5, 21, it says this. You have heard it said by days of old, right, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable of judgment. But I say to you that Everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable of judgment. So even having anger towards other people and wanting their physical harm is a killing spirit. And I'm not trying to be funny, but I really did think I was like, oh man.
I mean, there have been a few times I didn't, like, I didn't want someone to die, okay, so please make that very clear. But like someone did something to me, I was like, you know, I maybe like a stubbed toe, something like that, like soon after, you know, something like that, he's like, hey, listen, even the desire for something bad to happen to them, right? That's important. Like that's a killing spirit. Another 1 In Matthew 5, 22, whoever insults his brother and says, you fool will be liable of the fires of hell.
So thinking of human beings and people as anything less then the special image and creation of God that they are is also a type of killing.
And when you insult somebody and call them a demeaning or derogatory name, while at the same time you recognize that they're an image of God bearer, it's a type of killing spirit.
And this is one that I forgot, but I needed to hear in James chapter five that when we turn a deaf ear to the poor and the sufferings of the poor while living in luxury, it's also a type of killing.
Matthew 25 is one of those texts kind of like this one that I forgot is in the Bible.
And maybe it's because I want to conveniently forget, because do you remember when Jesus is talking about the scene one day as we're waiting to go into heaven, he said that there's going to come a day where he's going to separate sheep from goats.
And I always used to think, well, the line of delineation between the sheep and the goats is the ones that knew the most. They knew the right scriptures, they could turn in the right places. No, he says the line of delineation between a sheep and a goat, those who are on the right or the left are the ones that chose to take care of the least of these.
That's what he picked. Why? Because God values life.
He loves life, values people, and so should we.
But also if we choose to withhold the gospel from somebody, it's also a murderous spirit.
Human life is precious.
And what God has called us to is to protect that, to seek that, pursue it, and to leverage our lives for that too.
So I want to give you just a few quick points.
Number one, just trying to put into practice what we just read.
Number One, to see every single person as somebody that bears the image of God. Every person, no matter what age, no matter what stage. Number two, to seek other people's good.
Do you remember in the book of Jeremiah, they were living at a time. To me, that's kind of like the one we're living in now. People were following idols. The culture was sinful. And so they're basically asking God, like, how do we handle what's going on in this sinful culture? You know what God doesn't say? Here's what I want you to do. I want you to hide out underground. I want you to tint your windows, and I want you just to get away from society. No. What does he say? He said, seek the welfare of the city where I've sent you, because in its welfare, guess what? You find welfare.
When you seek the welfare, you're basically creating the atmosphere that you get to live in.
But number three, to speak life.
And to me, where this shows up the most today is having a refusal to gossip.
Everything we say must be true, but not all true things need to be said.
And we also have to think, is what I'm saying helpful? Is what I'm saying needed? And I think the challenge in Christianity for gossip is we like to mask gossip as concern.
I'm just concerned. Are you really? Because if you're concerned, a concern is going to follow with an action, right?
One of the books that I have says this is also a sign to run. When somebody says this.
Well, a lot of people are saying, well, if you can't name the people, if you can't say who it is, we're going to move on. All right?
How we talk about people, how we talk about things, it really matters.
Number four, share the message that gives life. And that's the gospel that we carry. The greatest message of all time. That's what excites me about this theme. This year we get to tell 500 kids in our church, family and in the community that they were made in the image of God and they were created by him and they have a purpose.
That is so awesome.
Now you might be sitting there and you think, okay, at first I felt really good in the sermon because I hadn't murdered anybody. I haven't killed anybody. But now, if you're like me, I kind of like, well, I didn't do this and I didn't do that, man. I just, well, here's what I want you. I'm not trying to let us all off the hook because we still have to change. We still have to repent. But at the same time, here's what I want you to find some encouragement in. Because I don't want any of us leaving here today beating ourselves up. I want us to leave here today with life.
That maybe you're like, you know what? I have not treated a human life well.
And maybe to get even more focused, maybe for some of you, you've done something with a human life that you regret and you wished you wouldn't have done. Here's what I want you to hear. Please.
That can be redeemed.
That can be redeemed.
That can be forgiven.
Or maybe part of it is. You're reading this like I am. I'm like, well, I didn't share the gospel with this person, and I spoke ill of this person. Like, the only person that has done this perfect is Jesus Christ. And guess what happened to him. He was murdered. And do you see the irony of this whole thing?
Like, the greatest violation of thou shalt not kill is what we did to Jesus that got him on the cross.
And so it's incredibly humbling to think that on that cross he had every right in the world to say vengeance. I'm gonna get it after Andrew, because he's the reason I'm up here. But even on the cross, he said, I want to save him and I want to save everybody else. That's the message that we get to carry.
One of the things that I love about this generation right now of many things, is they love baseball cards.
And I spent a lot of time as a child memorizing random facts of Jeff Blauser.
And for some of you that grew up in that age, you know what I'm talking about? And it's interesting, now that my kids are into buying and trading cards with their buddies, is my algorithm on social media is all baseball cards right now.
And so because of that, I get to find out how they determine value. And it's really interesting, you know, the two things that they use to determine the value of a card.
Number one, whose image is on the card, and number two, how much people are willing to pay for it.
Whose image is on the card and how much people are willing to pay for it.
There's so many parables of Jesus to me that are like, will make your jaw drop. You know, it's the one that in Luke 15, I kind of highlight the parable of the lost son and the parable of the 99 sheep or the hundred sheep. You know what's the most amazing to me of that whole is the coin.
Think about it for just a second. This woman loses a coin, spends all day, all her energy, all her time, all her. On a coin.
And then she invites her friends to a party to celebrate.
She found her coin. I mean, can you imagine going to the mail and getting that invitation?
Honey, what is that?
Gertrude, just give us an invite to her party. We need an rsvp. What happened? She found her coin.
All of that for a coin.
To me, that's an illogical approach to value.
And that's the point of the parable.
The value is not determined by just the coin itself. But you know what was on that coin? An image.
An image was on that coin, and that's what makes those coins valuable.
So maybe you're here today and you feel like you just don't feel valuable. You don't feel valued even.
But here's what I want you to do. I want you to find value in God and in a church family that loves you and sees your value. So maybe what you need is just to ask for prayers in your own life because you feel devalued or you've done something that you think hurts your value.
Maybe some of you are in this audience today and the challenge that you have is that you haven't valued life by the way you've talked about people or talked about life.
Maybe for some of you, what it is, is that you've never just given your life to Christ.
You've never surrendered your life to him.
And what's neat was I love what was mentioned in both services this morning by Joe and Nathan of the value of life in the blood, that the blood of Christ can wash all your sins away.
So if you're here today, I want you to remember this number one. God's image is on you and that gives you value.
He died for you and he loves you and so do we. So if you have a need today, please come while we stand and we sing this song.
