Sermon Central
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I Value You For Who You Are
Contributed by William Hooper on Jun 1, 2013 (message contributor)
Summary: Discovering what we mean when we give others affirmative words.
“I Value You for Who You Are”
Introduction
We make value judgments every day about all sorts of things. We choose one product over another product. We choose one TV news program over another. We think carefully before investing a huge amount of money in a new car.
Values are judgments about how important someone or something is to us. We refer to social values, religious values, or “family values.” Each one of these is a value statement.
To value means we consider someone or something to be important or beneficial. It means we have a high opinion of someone or something. In order to help us make value judgments we develop a personal system for valuing someone or something. We call this a values system because it is a person’s principles or standards of behavior in making these choices.
We tend to value everything in terms of money. I thought you would be interested in what dollar value you are.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has calculated the value of a human life at $9.1 million, up from $6.8 million during the Bush era. The Food and Drug Administration's current estimate is $7.9 million, up from $2.9 million since 2008. Meanwhile, the transportation Department is sticking with its $6 million figure. Generally though, experts say the long-term trend is upward, with top human matter fetching big dollars. A lung alone goes for over $100,000 USD. Add to that bone marrow, extracted antibodies, blood and sperm donations, female eggs, bio-voltage, medical testing opportunities, lifetime taxation, ears, eyes, knees, hearts, livers and future earning potential and it all starts to add up. If you are feeling like a million bucks though, you shouldn’t.
The only real authority on a human body's worth is the periodic table. It says a corpses’ raw resources are worth about a dollar. Sulfur probably has the most value once the water is drained. It’s used to make matches. That said, there is still reason to believe in a corpse's inflated worth. A recent report financed by the Department of Homeland Security suggested that preventing a death from terrorism now costs 100 percent more than other deaths.
Let’s see what your non-monetary value is according both to the world and according to God.
I. Who You Are According to the World
A. You live in a universe that happened by chance and has no purpose.
In his TV program Cosmos, Carl Sagan made this comment:
"Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people."
Sagan went on to say that only matter is eternal. There is nothing outside the universe, there is no God or other supernatural being.
B. The world says you are a person that just happened by chance without any purpose.
You are a complex “machine.” Your personality is the result of chemical and physical properties interrelating in ways we do not fully understand.
You are physical matter and do not transcend the universe in any way. There are no eternal values. Values are created by human beings. You have no value in and of yourself.
Morality is situational. What is moral or immoral depends upon the circumstances and who is involved. The good, the true, the perfect exist only as things that help our human species survive. And finally, death ends everything. There is no heaven, no hell; there is nothing.
C. Your personal value is what society gives you.
You have no value in and of yourself. You have to prove you have value to the world, or retreat into your inner self and live in some kind of psycho-babble world to find your value.
Some people spend a lifetime trying to find a way to feel they are of value. Some people believe they have value in a job, but if job is lost, their value is lost. Some people believe they have value in physical appearance, but if physical appearance is lost, their value is lost. Some people believe their value in wealth, but if wealth is lost, their value is lost. Young people go along with the gang for this makes them feel they have value.
Some years ago, Time Magazine featured a story about Peter Sellers, a well-known English actor. The article was about him appearing on the Muppet Show and being interviewed by Kermit The Frog. Kermit began the interview by telling Sellers to relax and be himself.
Peter Sellers responded that he couldn’t be himself because he didn’t know who he was. The real Peter Sellers didn’t exist." His words were rather sad. One of his long time friends, commenting on those words, said Sellers had become an amalgamation of all the stage & screen characters he had ever played.
