Sermon – “Jesus Is Into Life!” Sunday, January 24, 2010 Faith Temple – Sioux Falls, S.D. Pastor Jeff Hayes

Title: “Jesus Is Into Life!”

Scriptures: Jeremiah 1:4-5, Plus Several

Introduction: 1. What are you into??? 2. Hobbies, Cars, Guns, Education, playing an instrument! 3. 45 Million Unborn Babies Killed! 4. Can’t forget every day that the UNBORN ARE BEING KILLED! 5. But JESUS IS INTO LIFE!!! 6. Our Nation also wrestles with Fetal Tissue Cell Research. 7. Turn to the Scriptures to See what the Word of God Really Has to say about the Unborn Life. 8. In the final analysis this is all that matters. Political parties will have their opinions, doctors and medical organizations will have theirs, you and I will have ours, but all of them will be judged by the “Word of the Lord.” 9. Romans 3:4 Let God Be true, and every man a liar. 10. What Does God Say About The Unborn??? 11. Jesus Is Into Life!

I. The Unborn Are People! II. The Unborn Are People Created By God! III. The Unborn Are People Created By God For A Purpose! Page 2

I. The Unborn Are People!

Scripture: Jeremiah 1:4-5 “The word of the Lord came to me, saying, vs. 5 Before I formed you In the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” (NIV)

1. Many terms are used to describe unborn life today; fetus, tissue, embryo, etc... All sound so cold and frankly inhuman. a. But God says "before I formed you I knew you." The word "before" here is very significant. God is saying, "before I began to create the person who would later come to be known as Jeremiah I knew Him. b. In the mind of God, before Jeremiah was even conceived, God considered him a person. c. Before he began his creative work God considered him a person. d. How much more was Jeremiah a person after conception The point seems very clear to me. e If God considers the unborn life to be a person before he even begins to create him in the womb, we should certainly consider him or her a person after that creative process has begun.

2. There are other Scriptural examples that testify to the fact that God considers the unborn child a human, a person. a. So human is unborn life to God that a baby inside of the womb leaped for joy! (What in the womb baby leaped for joy???) b. Mary Visits Elizabeth... Elizabeth pregnant with John The Baptist. Page 3 (#1 The Unborn Are People! Cont.)

c. Scripture: Luke 1:39-44 “At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judah, vs. 40 shere she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. Vs. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Vs. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! Vs. 43 But why as I so favored, that the mother of MY LORD should come to me? (Who was Elizabeth describing in the womb of Mary???... MY LORD - Jesus Vs. 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” d. God filled a second trimester baby named John the Baptist with joy. e. Tissues are not filled with the Spirit ...people are.

3. So human is unborn life that the two sons of Rebecca, as they strove together in the womb were considered by God, “Babies” , "two nations", “TWO PEOPLES.“

a. Scripture: Genesis 25:21-23 Isaac prayed to the LORD -----on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. The ------LORD answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah ------became pregnant. 22 The BABIES jostled each other ------within her, and she said, "Why is this happening to ------me?" So she went to inquire of the LORD.

VS. 23 The LORD said to her, "TWO NATIONS are in your womb, and TWO PEOPLES from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger."

b. God not only saw 2 babies as individuals before Him, He saw them in the womb as human beings!

Page 4 (#1 The Unborn Are People! Cont.)

4. Was Jesus not a person when he was in the womb? a. If life does not begin at conception then Jesus ceased to exist as a person for some time as he was only a developing fetus but not a person. b. This is an important argument because the first thing that any society does if it is going to mistreat a particular class of people either because of hatred or convenience is to dehumanize them. c. Some theologians in the 19th century offered the idea that black africans had no souls in order to justify the enslavement of the black man. d. How much easier is it for our society to do it today when the voice and even the form of those who are being dehumanized and mistreated cannot be heard or seen. Their cries are silent. e. THE UNBORN ARE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!

f. Michael Clancy.. As a veteran photojournalist in Nashville, ------Tennessee, I was hired by USA Today newspaper to photograph a spina bifida corrective surgical procedure. It was to be performed on a twenty-one week old fetus in utero at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The tension could be felt in the operating room as the surgery began. A typical C-section incision was made to access the uterus, which was then lifted out and laid at the junction of the mother's thighs. The entire procedure would take place within the uterus, and no part of the child was to breach the surgical opening. As a doctor asked me what speed of film I was using, out of the corner of my eye I saw the uterus shake, but no one's hands were near it. It was shaking from within. Suddenly, an entire arm thrust out of the opening, then pulled back until just a little hand was showing. The doctor reached over and lifted the hand, which reacted and squeezed the doctor's finger. As if testing for strength, the doctor shook the tiny fist. Baby Samuel held firm. I took the picture! Wow! It happened so fast that the nurse standing next to me asked, "What happened?" "The child reached out," I said. "Oh. They do that all the time," she responded. Page 5

#1 The Unborn Are People!

#2 The Unborn Are People Created By God!

1. God said to Jeremiah, 1:5 "Before I formed you." a. The word "form" in the Hebrew is a word used to describe the creative work of a potter as he molds and shapes a vessel. b. It is the same word used in Genesis when the Bible says that God "formed man from the dust of the earth." c. The same purposeful act of God that took place in the dust of the earth when Adam was formed takes place in the womb when God forms life there. d You see the unborn is not an accident, he or she is not the product of random chance, he or she is the product of God’s creative work.

2. Is this not what David echos in Psalm 139?

a. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the

earth, Page 6 (#2 The Unborn Are People Created By God!) cont.

3. Human life in the womb, regardless of the

circumstances involved is a product of God’s creative

work.

4. Unborn human life is set above the rest of God’s creation because it is made in the very "image of God" Himself. This is what makes the unborn more valuable than snail darters, and spotted owls, and seals.. 5. This vessel that God is forming in the womb is so honorable because it is the only creation of God designed to house the very presence of God Himself. 6. I Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God” 7. Christ died for the unborn. Unborn life is so valuable because it is the object of God’s love. 8. How Valuable are people??? unborn or slaves???

9. President John Quincy Adams after being the President of the United states ran for Congress. In Congress, John Quincy Adams was an eloquent and tireless foe of slavery. a. In 1836, the House passed the notorious "Gag Resolution," which made it impossible for antislavery members of the House to air their grievances.

Adams would spend the rest of the decade battling to strike the gag rule from the books. Adams's enemies took to calling him the "Massachusetts Madman" and even tried to censure him, but he stood his ground.

In Congress, Adams pressed on with his fight against the gag rule despite every effort of his opponents to stifle him. "My soul is oppressed," Adams lamented. "The deepest of my afflictions is the degeneracy of my country from all the principles which gave her Page 7 #2 The Unborn Are People Created By God” Cont). existence, and the ruin irreparable of them all, under the transcendent power of slavery and the slave-representation." Adams triumphed in 1844, when the House finally abolished the gag rule. This was a culminating moment for "Old Man Eloquent," who had a lot of fight left in him for a man of 77. As John Quincy Adams Believed That Slaves Were Living Beings So Are The Unborn!

Save The Unborn... The Unborn Are People Created By God!

I. The Unborn Are People! II. The Unborn Are People Created By God! III. THE Unborn Are People Created By God For A Purpose!

a. Jeremiah 1:5 “before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” (NIV)

b. Oh! A critic may say, this is true of Jeremiah a prophet but he is a special case. Not all children are created with such a lofty purpose. c. You Here Today Have Blessed My Life!!!! d. Because of circumstances sometimes its hard for us to see any purpose for the birth of some children. Sometimes we feel that some children would not have a chance if they were brought into this world. But this choice is better left in the hands of God. e. We are not God.

f. What About This Child???? 1) A preacher and his wife living in extreme poverty. They have 14 children and she is pregnant again. 2) The mother has TB and the father could have TB. The family has four children already. One has TB, two are deaf and one is blind. Would you consider abortion? (John Wesley 3) A thirteen year old black girl is raped by a white man. The Young girl conceives and delivers a baby girl (Ethel Waters) Page 8 III. THE Unborn Are People Created By God For A Purpose!

4) A teenage girl becomes pregnant but not by her fiance. He is very upset. She says that it is an “act of God” would you consider abortion. (Jesus)

Conclusion: The Aborted Unborn??? Do Christians Need To Do Anything???

Let The Politians Do it Let The Courts Do It!!!

Kevin Jergensen

Amber Carson of Lancaster , Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

Mike Huckabee said he knows what happens when even good people look the other way when a great evil is done. The former governor described his family’s emotional visit to Yad Vashem, Israel’s museum of the Holocaust, when his daughter, Sarah, was 12. After seeing the horrible depravity of the death camps and the atrocities committed by the Nazis against Jews, he said, Sarah wrote in the museum guestbook, “Why didn’t somebody do something?” “To this day, I’ve never had to ask Sarah if she got the message. I pray there is never a day when a father takes his daughter to a Museum of the Holocaust of Abortion and watches her write about our country, ‘Why didn’t somebody do something?’”

“Jesus Is Into Life”