Designer Genes

Introduction

The confirmation of Judge Amy Barrett to the Supreme Court last Monday points to the divisiveness of our country. For those opposed to her nomination, there are great concerns that her nomination would impact many areas of American life, including the environment, business regulation, gay rights, and of course, abortion rights. Many Americans are worried that they will soon have not constitutional right to end their pregnancy. They are worried that abortions will not be considered legal and many will resort to the underground networks where doctors performed them illegally.

Why is it such a big deal? The world is full of those who do not value life in the womb.

A prevalent philosophy in our culture is that we, humans are conclusions? One leading American bioethicist from Princeton, Pete Singer said this– “We can no longer base our ethics on the idea that human beings are a special form of creation made in the image of God and singled out from all other animals.”

That really says it all, doesn’t it? In other words, let’s abandon the biblical declaration of origins and the concept of a caring, dedicated, creative God and His designer creation . . . and if you do, and this professor is proof – you will led to logically conclude that humans are really animals who are presently crowding the planet; and like any other animal, if the parent wants to feed them to their siblings or abandon them in the wild – there really isn’t anything morally wrong in any of that.” And that’s ultimately because God had nothing to do with their creation anyway.

We’re just animals and God had nothing to do with us.

Not so, says David, the Singer-King of Israel.

Without apology, David writes, God had everything to do with us. In fact, God had everything to do with everything about us! David is singing from a different sheet of music entirely as he composes one of his most famous songs – labeled Psalm 139 – a Psalm which we have spent three weeks looking at. In this Psalm David takes us – not into the delivery room to see a newborn – but into the womb – via Divine inspiration – to see the beginning of the beginning of a person’s life.

Notice how he writes in verse 13 – For you – he sings to God – formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. David pictures God at a weaver’s shuttle – choosing the thread and the colors and – and weaving away at us. Look at verse 14. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. Fearfully – that is: amazingly – fearfully and wonderfully – that is: uniquely – amazingly and uniquely made. From your fingerprint – to the size of your nose – to the color of your hair – or the lack thereof.

Look at the next verse in this song. Verse 15. My frame was not hidden from you (referring to God), when I was being made in secret. The Hebrew term here referring to our frame is literally referring to bony substance – or skeleton. In other words, God was not separate from the development of our skeletal structure.

Notice further in verse 15b. intricately woven (you could translate that embroidered) in the depths of the earth. The depths of the earth is a metaphor for the secret recesses of the womb. David delivers the stunning, yet amazing truth that God has had everything to do with the way you were put together. It also means that God wired together what would become every physical ability and every physical disability – woven into your being so that we would uniquely give Him glory and uniquely have to depend upon him for our own unique needs – and find in Him a faithful, gracious, sovereign, Lord.

 So, centuries before sonograms would show us a beating heart of that baby at 9 weeks;

 centuries before we could actually see the unborn baby sucking his thumb and responding to sounds and painful stimuli;

 centuries before medical technology would discover that a pre-born baby is emitting brain waves almost identical to adult brain waves before the baby is even 40 days old in the womb – David says, “You, O God, were busy at work from the very moment when Mr. Sperm and Mrs. Egg met and that cell divided. Is it life then?

David would say, life has then begun and God is already involved. In fact, notice verse 16. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. The words David chose under the inspiring influence of the Holy Spirit – translated unformed substance is actually one Hebrew word – a word that didn’t exist in David’s generation – but best translates in today’s lingo as embryo.

Substance under formation in the womb – substance not yet perfected – but living . . . developing . . . destined. In fact, if you are careful to connect this phrase with the preceding phrase – David is saying that God is intricately weaving our embryo. Now obviously medical science will leave God out of the equation – as they crusade for evolution and a universe without a Creator; but they have at least caught up with David’s revelation that an embryo is developing according to an intricate pattern. Embroidered growth.

David says, ‘That’s it – we are growing according to some pre-existing information – a pattern – created just for you and me. One author wrote about this pattern. We happen to know it as DNA. He wrote, your body is made up of about 30 trillion cells – and each cell contains volumes of information coded on it [and by which it develops in the womb].

Another author wrote, “When David wrote in Psalm 139:15 that we were embroidered as if our form were being sewn onto an intricate and beautiful pattern, he actually described the remarkable process of embryonic growth, now discovered by modern molecular biology. The pattern in the DNA molecule is an intricate double-helical structure which serves as a template for the developing body.

God designed you…you fit the pattern he laid out for your life. You have designer genes. Can you imagine the complexity of the pattern that would become you?! Where’d that pattern come from? David answers that too – without having a clue about DNA – notice the next verse, verse 16 again – Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

The information about your life and the complexity of it and even the length of it in the book of your Creator God who is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. And David says, in verse 17, How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them. 18. If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake and I am still with You.

In other words, the complexity of the pattern must mean that you, O God, thought complex and detailed thoughts about me as you created the pattern for just me – and to think You thought, and still think, about me – that is precious knowledge to me. And when I awake to my daily life – the fact that You are designing even that day – and the life to come – creates incredible security and praise and worship. To reject this knowledge – to abandon God’s revelation of God’s design of human life – is to embrace tragedy and death and even meaninglessness in life.

There’s no better illustration of the abandonment of Psalm 139 than the Supreme Court ruling in 1973 known as Roe v. Wade which endorsed abortion. Scripture was no longer to be weighed as credible evidence. And consider the fact that medical science in 1973 had still not caught up with the prenatal expose of Psalm 139.

Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun argued for the woman’s right to remove fetal tissue from her own body if she chose – it was her right to privacy. In other words, a woman had the right to remove the fetus, as one might remove an appendix or a gall bladder; it was a non-person – a non-living human being – a lump of non-sentient tissue.

However, and tragically, Justice Blackmun admitted in the majority opinion that determining when life began was – and I quote – “a difficult question to resolve” – and then he went on to argue for abortion.

(PENSIVELY) A difficult question to resolve . . . we’re not sure if it’s human life or not – it could be, but we’ll never know.

Let’s take Blackmun’s illogical reasoning and use an illustration to think about what he stated.

Gene Robinson is excited about hunting season. Right? How many days until the general hunting season starts? 13 days! Now....and this is just an illustration…not a wish for Gene.

But suppose Gene is out hunting an his buddy mistakes him for a deer and kills him. His friend goes before the judge...guilty of shooting Gene to death while out hunting deer –and the hunter’s argument is, “I saw movement in the bushes; I didn’t know if it was a human being or a deer, and even though I was unable to resolve the difficult question, I pulled the trigger anyway.”

Any judge would argue back, “Shouldn’t you have waited until you were sure? Shouldn’t you have gone the extra mile to protect the possibility of it being a person, before you pulled the trigger?” The truth is, even without David’s description in Psalm 139, what we have learned in the last 30 years about life in the womb from medical science alone should put every abortionist out of business and reverse the Supreme Court decision and change every mother and father’s mind.

We now know it is a thinking, feeling, developing human being, worthy of extra precaution and protection. There is no longer serious doubt in my scientific minds that human life exists from the very onset of pregnancy.” The question has become does that life have any value?

Value? Psalm 139:16 David tells God, Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Now this may seem as if this sermon is a political sermon about abortion. It’s not. we are going through specific psalms and we come to the psalm that talks about the sanctity of life. I think we have much more to worry about than abortion because abortion is a symptom. It is not a cause.

The general causes of abortion are immorality, lying, deception, abuse of power, cruelty, and disregard for the poor, and racism. When all of these things are excused and minimized in the name of eliminating abortion then it is obvious to me that people really don't care about the abortion issue. It's more about control, power, and other things than it is about life begins in the womb.

I know many Christians who have paid and covered up for abortions that were committed in order to hide incestuous relationships and have shown little repentance; yet, they get on Facebook and call the democrats “baby killers.”

Don’t get me wrong, Christians ought to be against the unnecessary killing of babies in the womb. But the what are we doing to reach those who have put themselves in a situation so bad, they fear that the church will not understand. What about those, and some of you will understand this, live with the regret of terminating a pregnancy, because it wasn’t convenient for you. You have been forgiven…you are living a life for God, but Satan keep bringing to your mind. Why? Because it is an egregious sin; but God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from unrighteousness…Forgiveness: forgiveness always follows repentance, confession, of any sin – of any crime – of any misdeed – the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s son, cleanses us from all sin the scar is still there, but the grace we receive from forgiven sin ought to compel us to be all in for God.

The picture of Wyatt that we showed during the Children’s Message. Was he human then? Or was he just like another animal that’s life could be terminated because he didn’t have value? He had and he has God’s designer genes weaved together to make him a unique amazing image bearer of the Creator God.

Let me close with a paraphrase of these verses – I found them in a commentary on the Psalms that I’ve enjoyed studying: For You, God, and none other, originated my vital organs. You knitted me together in the womb of my mother; my skeleton and bones were not hidden from You when I was made in that concealed place of protection, when my veins and arteries were skillfully embroidered together . . . like fine needlepoint. Your eyes watched over me when I was just an embryo; and in Your book the days I should experience were all described and recorded –the kind of days that would shape me into the person You want me to be – even before I had been born. How priceless and mighty and vast and numerous are Your thoughts of me, O God. Should I attempt to count them, they would outnumber the sand on the seashore.

And Your plan isn’t limited just to this life; Your plan for me includes the life to come – my life and what it will become throughout all of eternity; that also has been already planned – by You – for me. No wonder David can lead us in this song into deeper worship of our omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God.

Klaus always jokes about coming to church in a tie, but know this, that everyone one of you sit in this church today, in God’s designer genes! Genes sewed together, uniquely, amazingly, just for you!

Wear those genes proudly as you live your life for him.