YOUR LIFE—IN FIVE STAGES
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on January 22, 2023 under 2023 |
Bethany Bible Church Sanctity of Life Sunday Sermon Message; January 22, 2023 from various passages
Theme: The value of human life is shown in the five stages of the redeemed man’s or woman’s existence before God.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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Adapted from a devotional first presented in The Bethany Bible Church eNewsletter, January 16, 2020.
Whether people want to admit it or not, the whole question of how we value human life is not a scientific one. It’s a theological one.
I know that many people would fiercely disagree with that. But it’s still true. If someone chooses to believe that the God of the Bible doesn’t exist, and that humankind was not made by God in His image, then he or she will have made a theological decision; and they will inevitably value human life in a way that is consistent with that belief. If, on the other hand, someone chooses to believe that the God of the Bible exists, and that humankind was made by Him in the way that the very first few pages of the Bible describes, then he or she will grow to value human life accordingly. And so, whether they are willing to admit it or not, the ‘science’ that people often choose to believe and operate on in valuing human life is based upon the theological commitments they had made before they examine the scientific evidence.
This means that the controversies that we see played out in our time over the value of human life—such controversies as abortion, genocide, infanticide, physician-assisted suicide, and genetic human engineering—are ultimately being decided on the basis of the theological choices that people make beforehand. These things are ultimately theological matters.
This morning, on the day that people around the nation are observing Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, we—as followers of Jesus—wholeheartedly embrace the Bible’s teaching about human life. We begin with true theology; and declare that all people—no matter what their race, background, gender, or even beliefs and conduct; from the time they are conceived in the womb to the time that their life on earth comes to an end—are made in the image of God; and are therefore worthy of being treated with value and dignity. We believe this because, as the Bible clearly affirms,
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:26-28).
How someone values human life has a great deal to do with how he or she understands human life to have begun. And, dear brothers and sisters in Christ; our sense of the immeasurable value of all human life springs from those words of truth about the beginning of human life—found at the very beginning of the Bible. They are the source of our ‘theology’ of human value of human life on earth.
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But this morning, I would like to ask us to view things from an equally true but even bigger theological picture than that. Did you know that, when it comes to the believer—when it comes to the man or woman who has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ through faith—the Bible tells us a much larger story? The Bible teaches us that the whole story of a redeemed man or woman begins far earlier than just the time of their birth—far earlier, in fact, than the Creation story in Genesis. And it also extends far beyond the time when the life of a redeemed man or woman on earth comes to an end—far beyond, in fact, the existence of this observable universe.
The Bible teaches us that when this created realm is brought by Him to an end, the existence of every human being that has ever lived will still go on—those who have been redeemed by the blood of His Son existing in the new heavens and the new earth in what is called ‘eternal life’; and those who have rejected His Son existing eternally in the lake of fire in what is called ‘the second death’. And what’s more, the Bible teaches us that long before the Creation came into existence, God had already loved and valued those of us that He would redeem to Himself. It teaches us that, long after this Creation ceases to exist, God will continue to have loving fellowship with those of us that He has redeemed. In that respect, human life—and particularly, the life of the redeemed—is more valuable and precious to God our Creator than all the rest of His Creation. And what’s more still; the Bible also teaches us that, in order to preserve the eternal fellowship that He will enjoy with us—that is, His redeemed people—He sent His own Son from heavenly glory to become one of us. He was born into the human family, and took full human nature to Himself forever; and did this all so that He could redeem us from our sins at the cost of His own sinless blood.
The only true and reliable valuation that can be placed on human life is that which God—the Creator—places upon it. And when viewed from the larger picture that the Bible gives us, it’s almost ‘humanly impossible’ to express how much God values human life—especially the life of the redeemed!
So then; this morning, I’d like to share with you the theological ‘big picture’ of the human existence of a redeemed woman or man—as the Bible gives it to us. I’d like to show you what I call ‘The Five Stages of Human Existence’ as it pertains to us as believers. And in doing so, I pray that our view of the real value of human life would be greatly expanded—to the glory and praise of God our Creator and Redeemer.
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So then, dear redeemed brother or sister in Christ; let’s consider …
THE FIRST STAGE OF YOUR EXISTENCE IN ETERNITY PAST.
The first stage of your existence before God as one of His redeemed people took place before you were born. In fact, it took place before the worlds were created. The Bible teaches us that, though you had not yet come into physical existence in the womb of your mother, you still nevertheless existed in God’s eternal love and plan. This is shown to us in Psalm 139; when King David praised God and said,
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them (Psalm 139:16).
David—under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—was speaking of a time long before his days ever showed up on the calendar. He said that those days were already planned and fashioned by God for him. They were already written down in God’s schedule book. And he said that, long before his substance was formed in his mother’s womb—long before his material body ever took shape—God had already ‘seen’ his substantial being. This means that you, dear brother or sister, were already fully formed and in existence in the heart and mind and plan of God long before you were born.
Now; this should not be confused with any kind of belief in a ‘past life’—as if you existed as ‘somebody else’ before you were ‘you’. The ‘you’ that you were in God’s plan and purpose was fully ‘you’, and nobody else. But you were in the eternal plan and purpose of God before you were born. It may seem like a hard thing for the frail mind to grasp; dear brother or sister. But God truly had you in mind—and deeply loved you—before the time that you entered onto the scene. He even had all your days written for you in His book from long beforehand. You were so sure and certain in the plan of God that—as far as He was concerned—you had existence to Him.
He even planned your salvation before the world itself existed. The Bible tells us that God has a book; and the title of it is:
“the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8).
Not only did you exist in the mind and plan of God before you were born, but He even planned and prepared the redeeming sacrifice of His Son Jesus on the cross for you before He created this world.
So; the first stage of your existence, dear fellow believer, was in the form of God’s eternal love for you and plan for you before you were born—even before the world ever was. You could say that He already loved you so thoroughly, and that He already planned your days so completely, that—in the course of time—He created you. What immeasurable value you have! What immeasurable value all human life has!
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Now; the fact that, in due time, He created you leads us next to consider …
THE SECOND STAGE OF YOUR EXISTENCE IN UNBELIEF.
The second stage of your existence before God as a redeemed person is one in which you spent your time ‘not yet redeemed’. It’s that time of your physical existence that you spent between your birth and your salvation. It began as soon as you were conceived by your parents and were brought into this world. You lived on this earth in an unredeemed condition.
According to God’s eternal purpose and love for you—at just the right time in history—your mother and father got together. And then, you began to be formed in the womb, and you eventually came out—wiggling and crying—to join the crowd as a member of the human family. But you were born a fallen sinner. You were, in fact, conceived in the womb as a fallen sinner by a couple of other fallen sinners. You inherited a sin nature from your first parents Adam and Eve. It got passed on to your mother and father; and, from them, it was passed on to you. And I really don’t have to tell you this, because you already know it; but you went on to prove your fallenness by sinning in accordance to the sinful nature that they had passed on to you.
The apostle Paul spoke of this stage of your existence when he wrote;
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others (Ephesians 2:1-3).
This second stage of your existence may have lasted for only a few years; or it may have lasted for most of your life up until recently. For me, it was for all of the first sixteen-and-a-half years of my life. But during this second stage, you lived in alienation from the God who loved you and had made you for Himself. You rebelled against Him, and ignored Him, and sinned against Him. We look back on our lives during this second stage with sorrow and shame and regret; don’t we?
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People all around us are living in this second stage right now. But praise God, dear believing brother or sister, that—for you—that stage came to an end on the day when the Holy Spirit opened your heart, and you heard the message of the gospel, and you placed your trust in Jesus!
And that was when you began …
THE THIRD STAGE OF YOUR EXISTENCE IN FAITH.
This third stage of your existence before God as a redeemed person began when you believed on Jesus. On that day, Jesus—the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world—became your Savior; and you entered into a personal relationship of love with Him. The guilt of all your sins became washed away from you by His blood, and you were declared 100% righteous in God’s sight through faith in Him. You became born again. I love what the apostle Paul had to say about this stage;
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Sometimes—when you look at a posted map on a wilderness trail, or when you come across a sign in a state park, or even when you look at a directory kiosk in a shopping mall—you’ll see a little ‘arrow-like’ marker that says, “You Are Here”. It’s pretty handy when it comes to establishing a point of reference. It helps you to know what’s ahead—and behind—and where you are in respect to it all.
Well, dear fellow Christian; I suggest that you think of that “You Are Here” marker with regard to the whole scope of your existence before God. If you think of where you are right now in terms of the five stages of your whole existence in Jesus Christ, it will give you a better perspective of where you’re heading—and what you should do with the time that you have. You will get a sense of from where it was that God saved you, and to where it is that you are now heading. As the apostle Paul put it in Philippians 3;
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:12-14).
You’re living in this third stage right now, dear brother or sister! You are redeemed! Praise God for it! But this also means that you should now give your all to preparing for the glorious future God has for you in Christ.
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Now; even though you have not yet attained to them yet—even though you have not yet “apprehended”, as Paul put it—you look ahead to the final two stages of your existence as a redeemed man or woman before God. The Bible tells us much about these next two stages of our lives.
So; let’s go on to consider …
THE FOURTH STAGE OF YOUR EXISTENCE IN THE INTERMEDIATE STATE.
That’s how Bible teachers and theologians have referred to this fourth stage; as the ‘intermediate state’. Only a tiny fraction of the full number of redeemed people are in the third stage—where we are now. The vast majority of redeemed people who have ever lived in history are currently in this ‘intermediate state’.
For you, it will begin on the day when your body dies and is placed into the grave. At that time, your already-redeemed, already-glorified spirit will live on and will go immediately into the presence of your precious Savior. Do you remember what Jesus told the dying thief on the cross who believed on Him? He said,
“Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43).
Your body will rest in the ground—having returned for a time to dust—awaiting the day of resurrection at the Lord’s return to this earth. But your spirit will live on and will enter into the conscious and blissful presence of Jesus; kept by Him in anticipation of the glorious resurrection day. That’s why theologians refer to it as ‘the intermediate state’. It’s a time in which you will wait for the resurrection and glorification of your body. As the apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5;
So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:6-8).
When a believing brother or sister dies, it’s only their body that has died. Their spirit lives on. They have simply gone from the third stage to the fourth stage of their eternal existence before God. And that fourth stages is also the next stage for you and me; dear brother or sister.
What a day that will be for you! What joy you will have when you see the face of your Savior, and enjoy His presence in glory! What a joyful thing it will be to be freed from all the hindrances and liabilities you suffer under now, and to enter into unhindered fellowship with your redeemed brothers and sisters who have gone before you, and to bask in the glory and love of your Savior! As the apostle Paul put it—just before he laid down his own life for Jesus;
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing (2 Timothy 4:6-8).
That’s the next stage to come in your story, dear brother or sister.
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But it’s, by no means, the final stage of your existence as a redeemed saint. As wonderful as that fourth stage—that ‘intermediate state’—will be, it’s not even your most wonderful stage of all. The final stage will happen some time in the future; when the Lord Jesus returns to this earth, and brings your redeemed spirit with Him, and raises your body to be like His own.
So then; let’s go on to consider—last of all …
THE FIFTH STAGE OF YOUR EXISTENCE IN ETERNAL GLORY.
In that fifth stage, your spirit—which is already redeemed and glorified right now—will then be permanently united to your resurrected and glorified body. You will share in the full glory of Jesus Himself—the glory that He Himself enjoys right now in His resurrected body. You won’t have a different body at that time—any more than the Lord Jesus Himself was raised in a different body. You will possess your present body—but in a resurrected and glorified condition. Don’t ever despise your body. It may have troubles and struggles right now; but it is an eternal creation—spiritually united to Jesus Himself; destined to be raised, like His body, unto inexpressible glory.
Did you know, dear brothers and sisters, that there are some of us in the whole group of redeemed humanity that will skip stage four? Those redeemed brothers and sisters who are alive on earth at the time of Jesus’ return will go from stage three directly into stage five—without ever experiencing the death of the body. As the apostle Paul puts it in 1 Thessalonians 4;
But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17).
Revelation 21-22 tells you much of what that fifth stage will be like. It says that you will live in that fifth stage of your story—with your glorified spirit in a glorified body—forever in the new heaven and the new earth in the eternally blissful presence of Jesus. You will share forever with Him in His rich heavenly inheritance; and your joy will never end!
What a future God has for you! You can know with absolute certainty it will happen, because Jesus Himself has risen from the dead.
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So then; there are the five stages of the full scope of your existence as a redeemed man or woman in the sight of God: (1) your existence in God’s love before you were conceived; (2) your sinful state after you were born; (3) your new life in Christ after you believed; (4) your intermediate state after your body dies and your spirit goes to be with Jesus; and (5) your resurrected glory at Jesus’ return—with your glorified body and spirit united together and in perfect fellowship with Jesus forever after. This is good ‘theology’ by which to evaluate the worth of human life!
And there are at least two things this ought to do for us. First, it ought to motivate us to live faithfully for the Lord Jesus while we can. Compared to what is ahead, our present stage of existence is only a tiny ‘dot’ on the endless timeline of eternity. But the consequences of how we live during this brief stage are great beyond measure. There’s absolutely nothing unimportant about us. Every decision we make, every trial we undergo, every priority we set for ourselves, every moment of labor we spend for Jesus’ kingdom, has eternal significance. As the apostle John has put it;
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure (1 John 3:1-3).
And the second thing it should do for us is to help us to appreciate the immeasurable worth of all human life at every stage of its existence. It helps us to see beyond the temporal things of the flesh, and value all human beings as God values them. We should value them because Jesus went to the cross to redeem it.
And we should honor that value by proclaiming the good news of redemption through faith in Jesus to all people while we can.
AE
